So I was considering virtualizing and implementing a data backup to an alternate site with the built in vSphere replication included with the vSphere Essentials Plus kit, but I was planning on using all 3 hosts included with that liscense for production. What I was curious was, if I buy a vSphere Essentials kit (says it doesn't inlcude vSphere replication) in addition to my Plus set in production, can I make those regular liscenese the target of the replication without any issues? I am pretty sure that's what the manual said, but I am just curious if anyone has tried this, if there are any issues/cons associated with this? The prospect of saving $5k for the same functionality is too much to pass up!
You cannot use vSphere Replication to replicate virtual machines on ESXi hosts that do not have the correct
vSphere license. You can install vSphere Replication on an ESXi host that does not have the correct license, but
attempts to configure replication on virtual machines on that host fail with a licensing error.
If you configure a virtual machine for replication on a host with the correct vSphere license and move it to a
host with an unsupported license, vSphere Replication stops replication of that virtual machine. You can
disable vSphere Replication on a configured virtual machine on the unlicensed host.