Broadcom will not provide support for these versions, even for critical outages.
Some common issues that may arise when working with ESXi 5.5 license keys include:
To recap:
Paid keys (Standard, Enterprise, Enterprise Plus) unlocked advanced data center features like vMotion, High Availability (HA), and vCenter Server integration. Hardware Limitations of the 5.5 Free License
In VMware ESXi 5.5, the most significant "feature" introduced regarding licensing was the . Previous versions, like ESXi 5.1, had a strict 32GB limit per host for the free hypervisor license; in version 5.5, this was completely lifted, allowing for unlimited physical RAM usage. Key Features of the ESXi 5.5 Free License vmware esxi 55 license key 14k
: VMware completely removed the controversial virtual RAM (vRAM) tax in version 5.5. You can configure maximum memory pools without triggering licensing penalties.
VMware ESXi 5.5 officially reached its nearly eight years ago in September 2018. This means: Broadcom will not provide support for these versions,
If you need help migrating or managing this environment, please let me know:
: Modern server hardware (Intel Xeon Scalable or AMD EPYC) often lacks the drivers to boot ESXi 5.5, as the VMkernel was designed for much older architectures. Previous versions, like ESXi 5
If a host fails, VMs are automatically restarted on alternate functional hosts within the cluster. vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)
VMware vSphere 5.5 reached End of General Support (EOGS) on September 19, 2018, and Technical Guidance ended standard lifecycles thereafter. Running this software presents specific infrastructure risks that demand strict mitigation strategies. Operational Risks