# HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software QuickSpecs

Version 4 — 02-February-2026 — a50004260enw

HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software is a virtualization software solution that allows customers to provision and manage KVM and VMware-based VMs from a single intuitive interface.

## Overview

The solution comes with the KVM-based HVM hypervisor that is enhanced to include enterprise-grade cluster management with capabilities such as high availability, live compute and storage migration, distributed workload placement, integrated data protection, secure hardening, and external storage support. To enable flexibility for those continuing to host VMware-based applications, VM Essentials can also be used to connect to and manage existing VMware clusters. This means unified management and simple VM provisioning across both the HVM hypervisor and VMware ESXi™ so you can provision workloads on demand to the right environment, on your terms, with zero lock-in. When you're ready, you can use the included toolset to convert existing VMware images to VM Essentials.

### Validated Hardware and Software

The list of validated compute and storage hardware for VM Essentials can be found in the compatibility matrix, along with validated operating systems and ISV software.

### Models

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is making the following VM Essentials SKUs available. VM Essentials SKUs are licensed per physical CPU socket. Each SKU includes Tech Care Essentials support.

HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software SKUs
Description | SKU
--- | ---
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software per Socket 1-year E-LTU | `S5Q81AAE`
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software per Socket 3-year E-LTU | `S5Q82AAE`
HPE Morpheus VM Essentials Software per Socket 5-year E-LTU | `S5Q83AAE`

## Standard Features

### Key Features

#### Enterprise Virtualization

- VM Live Migration: Migrate running virtual machines from one physical host to another within an HVM cluster without downtime to improve host utilization or to perform host maintenance.
- VM High Availability: Enable workload resiliency with virtual machine high availability to quickly restart virtual machines on another physical host in the event of a host failure.
- Distributed Workload Placement: Dynamically schedule the placement of virtual machines within an HVM cluster based on intelligent placement logic that determines the optimal host for the virtual machine.
- VM Live Storage Migration: Migrate a running virtual machine's storage disks from one datastore to another without downtime.
- External Storage Support: Integrate with existing external storage (NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel) to take advantage of existing infrastructure investments.

#### Solution Integrations

- VMware vSphere Integration: Integrate VM Essentials with a vSphere deployment to discover existing virtual machines, provision new virtual machines, as well as manage provisioned or discovered machines.
- Native IP Pools: Assign virtual machine IP addresses using the VM Essentials native IP pools feature to define and manage pools of IP addresses associated with virtual machine networks.
- Native Secrets Management: Securely store and retrieve credentials and other sensitive information used in automation tasks for bootstrapping and managing managed virtual machines.
- IP Address Management (IPAM) Integration: Integrate 3rd party IPAM solutions (InfoBlox, BlueCat, SolarWinds, phpIPAM, EfficientIP) to automate the reservation and assignment of IP address.
- Domain Name System (DNS) Integration: Integrate 3rd party DNS solutions (PowerDNS, Microsoft DNS, BlueCat, InfoBlox, EfficientIP) to automate the creation of DNS A and PTR records.
- Native Data Protection: Create and restore snapshot-based backups for VM Essentials and VMware virtual machines using the native data protection functionality.
- Data Protection Integration: Integrate 3rd party Data Protection solutions (Commvault, Rubrik, Veeam) to create backup jobs during the creation of a VMware virtual machine and restore backups through the VM Essentials web interface.
- Provisioning Task Automation: Execute automation scripts (Bash and PowerShell) during the provisioning of virtual machines to orchestrate bootstrap operations such as software installation and system configuration.
- HPE Alletra Storage MP Integration: Integrate with the HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000 storage array to utilize direct virtual machine volume mapping to the storage array to enable granular performance configuration and array-based snapshotting.

### Virtual Machine Management

- Power Operations: Start, stop, and restart VMware and HVM virtual machines.
- Snapshot Management: Create, revert, and delete virtual machine snapshots for VMware and HVM virtual machines.
- Virtual Hardware Management: Add and remove virtual hardware such as hard disks, network interfaces, CPU and memory from a managed virtual machine (VM Essentials or VMware).
- Integrated Backup Management: Create, restore, and delete virtual machine backups for VMware and HVM virtual machines.
- HTML5 Console: Access the console of managed virtual machines via the VM Essentials manager web interface with support for Virtual Network Computing (VNC), Secure Shell (SSH), and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).
- Day 2 Task Automation: Execute automation scripts (Bash and PowerShell) against managed virtual machines to perform day 2 operational tasks such as freeing up disk space or updating system packages.
- Tag Management: Create and manage virtual machine tags for VMware and VM Essentials virtual machines.

## Service and Support

### HPE Services

No matter where you are in your digital transformation journey, you can count on HPE Services to deliver the expertise you need when, where and how you need it. From planning to deployment, ongoing operations and beyond, our experts can help you realize your digital ambitions. See https://www.hpe.com/services.

### HPE Complete Care Service

A modular, edge-to-cloud IT environment service designed to help optimize your entire IT environment and achieve agreed-upon IT outcomes and business goals through a personalized experience. Includes complete coverage, an assigned HPE team, modular engagement, enhanced incident management with priority access, and AI-driven customer experience. See https://www.hpe.com/services/completecare.

### HPE Tech Care Service

Operational support service experience for HPE products. Goes beyond traditional support by providing access to product-specific experts, an AI-driven digital experience, and general technical guidance. Available in three response levels:

- Basic: 9×5 business hours, 2-hour response.
- Essential: 15-minute response 24×7 (most enterprise customers).
- Critical: 6-hour repair commitment where available, plus outage management response for severity 1 incidents.

See https://www.hpe.com/services/techcare.

### HPE Lifecycle Services

- Lifecycle Install and Startup Services.
- Firmware Update Analysis Service.
- Firmware Update Implementation Service.
- Implementation assistance services.
- HPE Service Credits.

See https://www.hpe.com/services/lifecycle.

### Other Related Services

- HPE Education Services: Training and certification. See https://www.hpe.com/services/training.
- Defective Media Retention: Available with Complete Care and Tech Care for disks/SSDs replaced due to malfunction.
- Parts and Materials: HPE provides supported replacement parts including engineering improvements; parts past maximum supported lifetime are not provided.
- How to Purchase: Services sold by HPE and HPE Authorized Service Partners. Customers from commercial resellers see ssc.hpe.com.

### AI Powered and Digitally Enabled Support Experience

Sign into the HPE Support Center for streamlined self-serve case creation, knowledge recommendations, personalized task alerts, and an intelligent virtual agent with seamless transition to a live support agent when needed. See support.hpe.com.

### Consume IT On Your Terms

HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform brings the cloud experience directly to your apps and data — at the edge, in colocations, or in your data center. Pay-per-use, scalable, self-service experience.

## Summary of Changes

Date | Version | Action | Description
--- | --- | --- | ---
02-Feb-2026 | Version 4 | Changed | HPE Rebranding applied
05-May-2025 | Version 3 | Changed | Branding updates, Overview and Standard Features sections updated.
13-Jan-2025 | Version 2 | Changed | Overview and Standard Features sections updated.
02-Dec-2024 | Version 1 | New | New QuickSpecs.

© Copyright 2026 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. a50004260enw, 16864 - Worldwide - V4 - 02-February-2026.