Licensed Operating Systems
VMware ESXi
Equinix Metal™ offers VMware ESXi 6.5, 6.7, and 7.0.
Availability and Pricing
Equinix Metal does not offer licensing for ESXi at this time. By default, the OS comes with a 60-day evaluation license. If you would like to utilize it beyond the 60-days you will need to acquire a license from VMware and activate it on your servers(s).
A server compatibility comparison of our supported Operating Systems, including licensed OS's, can be found on the Supported Operating Systems page.
| Operating System | 3rd Generation |
|---|---|
| VMware ESXi 7.0 | c3.small, c3.medium, s3.xlarge |
| VMware ESXi 6.7 | c3.small, c3.medium, s3.xlarge |
| VMware ESXi 6.5 | c3.small, c3.medium, s3.xlarge |
Red Hat Enterprise on Equinix Metal
Equinix Metal offers Red Hat Enterprise 7 and Red Hat Enterprise 8.
Availability and Pricing
Licensing charges for Red Hat Enterprise Linux are a fixed rate of $0.15/hr regardless of server type, core count, or socket count. Fees are added to your invoice on the 1st of each month.
A server compatibility comparison of our supported Operating Systems, including licensed OS's, can be found on the Supported Operating Systems page.
| Operating System | 3rd Generation |
|---|---|
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 | 3.small, c3.medium, s3.xlarge, m3.large |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 | 3.small, c3.medium, s3.xlarge, m3.large |
Windows Server on Equinix Metal
Equinix Metal offers Windows Server 2016 Standard and Windows Server 2019 Standard.
Availability and Pricing
Equinix Metal charges a flat $0.01/hr per core for all the versions of Windows Server. Fees are added to your invoice on the 1st of each month. Since servers have a different number of cores based upon their processor(s), the additional licensing costs will vary.
A server compatibility comparison of our supported Operating Systems, including licensed OS's, can be found on the Supported Operating Systems page.
| Server | Processor | Windows 2016 Standard | Windows 2019 Standard |
|---|---|---|---|
| c3.small.x86 | 1x Xeon E 2278G 8-Core Processor @ 3.4Ghz | $0.08/hr | $0.08/hr |
| c3.medium.x86 | 1x AMD EPYC 7402P 24-Core Processor @ 2.8GHz | Not Available | $0.24/hr |
| m3.large.x86 | 1x AMD EPYC 7502P 32-Core Processor @ 2.5Ghz | Not Available | $0.32/hr |
| s3.xlarge.x86 | 2x Xeon 4214 24-Core Processor @ 2.2Ghz | $0.48/hr | $0.48/hr |
Windows Server Feature Compatibility
Using User Data with Windows - PowerShell is a supported executable target for cloud-init, allowing you to configure a host at provisioning time. More about User Data on Equinix Metal can be found here.
Accessing Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) - Once the server you deployed is Active, you can RDP in as Admin using the password on the server's details page. Our Windows image utilizes the default RDP port 3389.