I can see the above title bringing a lot of our competitors to read my blog for the next few days. I know many of them are already monitoring it daily, & as many of them still believe that there is still no upgrade path from our vSphere Essentials Kit & vSphere Essentials plus Kit might think I am shooting my self in the foot. I would love to disappoint them hard this time & point out that since vSphere has came out and the upgrade path from vSphere Essentials Kit & vSphere Essentials plus Kit has been available!!!!
I know it has been there for a while, but it seems many of VMware partners & customers still not aware of it. Its sad to say even some of my colleagues have not been aware of it yet as they have been busy with all the new great products VMware has been releasing lately. I thought I will share the news & the proofs for that in here to stop our competition of visiting SMB customers & telling them that VMware vSphere Essentials Kit & Essentials Plus Kit are dead ended packages. They are not.
I love VMware marketing team. They have always made the right changes at the right time. I mean the original VMware vSphere Essentials Kit & Essentials Plus Kit in VI3.5 did not have an upgrade path which got customers worried about what happen if they grow over the size of the vSphere Essentials Kit & Essentials Plus. VMware Marketing has addressed that quickly in vSphere. They have not only added an upgrade path to the essential & essential plus kits, but it has added even advanced features like VMotion & HA to the Essential plus kit. I believe the addition of these advanced features to VMware SMB Kits & giving the upgrade path explain it all that VMware is very committed to their SMB customers.
Here is the link to the cheat sheet which give you even the part number for the upgrade kits: VMware_vSphere_4.1_Cheatsheet.pdf
For VMware SMB customers all I can say it enjoy the upgrade path, for VMware partners here is one more reason to sell the Essential & Essential plus kits with confident that the customer can grow with it.
Thanks for sharing.
Upgrading from Essential Plus to “Midsize Acceleration Kit for 6 processors” costs $19,665.
Buying a brand new costs $17,795.
Kindly share as looks like I miss something.
Hi Iwan,
I am not sure where have you got your pricing from, though looking at the list price I can see the upgrade cost is 19,665 where a new one is 22,244 which still about 3000 dollar saving :). though always your best bit is to ask your reseller for the price of both & post back if you find any conspiracy. Not to mention, I do too little with pricing at the end of the day :).
Regards,
Eiad