VMware  vSphere 4.0 is a product suite that includes VMware vCenter Server, VMware ESX 4.0, VMware HA, VMware DRS, VMware Thin Provisoning, VMware Data Recovery, Storage VMotion, Host Profiles, vNetwork distributed Switch and Third party Mutlipathing like EMC PowerPath.

There is great deal of confusion with VMware vSphere product Editions on what’s features comes with which edition of VMware vSphere 4.In this article i will try to cover what’s feature is available with which edition of VMware vSphere.

VMware ESXi 4: Free version of VMware ESXi Single servers comes with support for 6 cores per processor, 4-way vSMP Support, 256GB Memory support for the Host server and Thin Provisoning.

VMware vSphere Essential:VMware vSphere 4 Essential Edition is targeted for small busines customers which comes with VMware ESX 4, vCenter server for managing Essentials VMware ESX 4 hosts, 6 core/processor support,4-way vSMP Support,256GB support for physical ESX host,Thin Provisoning, VC agent,Update Manager,VMsafe,vStorage API only.

VMware vSphere Essential Plus: This Edition of vSphere 4 is also targeted for small business customers, Features are same comapred to VMware vSphere Essesntials but also includes HA and vCenter Data Recovery Software.vCenter Data Recover is advanced backup recovery software provided as VMware virtual appliance for performing  file as well as image backup/recoveries.

VMware vSphere Standard: vSphere 4 Standard edition comes with all features available in VMware vSphere Essential plus but comes with Foundation & stabdard vCenter Server, vCenter data recovery tool is not available with this Edition

VMware vSphere Advanced: vSphere 4 Advanced Edition comes with all features available in vSphere Standard Edition along with vCenter Server Standard. Advanced Edition of vSphere comes with 12 core per processor support,VMware HA,vCenter Data recovery, Hot Add feature,Fault Tolerant , vShield Zone and VMotion.Storage vMotion and DRS feature is missing in this Edition.

vSphere Enterpise and Enterprise Plus:VMware vSphere Enterprise Edition comes with vCenter, VMware ESX 4 with 6 core per processor support,ability to support 256 GB Physical server Memory , all features that are included in VMware vSphere Advance plus VMware DRS and Storage VMotion.vSphere Enterprise Plus is new product Edition  introduced in VMware product line , since VMware ESX 4 is fully 64 bit you can add more memory on Physical ESX 4 Server. Enterprise Plus allows you to go beyond 256GB Memory with capability to support 512 GB Memory on Physical ESX 4 host and ability to support 12 core per Processor and allows 8-Way SMP support. The most important feature i like in vSphere Suite is Host profile which is only Available in vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus. Along with Fault tolreance (VMware FT), VMware HA, VMware DRS and VMware Storage Motion , the vSphere 4 Enterprise edition includes – vNetwork Dstributed Switch, Host profile and Third Party Multipathing.