I took a minute to read the licensing guide for vSphere 5 and I'm still trying to pull my jaw off the floor. VMware has completely screwed their customers this time. Why?
What I used to be able to do with 2 CPU licenses now takes 4. Incredible.
Today
BL460c G7 with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 2 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
DL585 G7 with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
Tomorrow
BL460c G7 with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
BL585 G7 with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 6 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
So it's almost as if VMware is putting a penalty on density and encouraging users to buy hardware with more sockets rather than less.
I get that the vRAM entitlements are for what you use, not necessarily what you have, but who buys memory and doesn't use it?
Forget the hoopla about a VM with 1 TB of memory. Who in their right mind would deploy that using the new license model? It would take 22 licenses to accommodate! You could go out and buy the physical box for way less than that today, from any hardware vendor.
Anyone else completely shocked by this move?
DSTAVERT wrote:
There isn't much to be gained posting here other than getting on record. If you actually do have an issue rather than just an opinion on the issue then consider spending the time with your VMware rep or VMware reseller. Get some direct help understanding the impact on your organization. Perhaps there are options you don't see or other ways to mitigate the effects of the change.
I disagree, there's a lot to be gained from posting here. There are a lot of people confused and concerned about the licensing change. Some myths have been dispelled, and some initial concerns seem to be justified as we all look at them.
DSTAVERT Wrote:
Charles Braun wrote:
If Brocade came to me tomorrow and said "Hey, you are only allowed to push 2Gb through each port in your 32 port 4Gb fibre switch unless you pay for 32 more ports" they would be shown the door rather expediently.
The new license model is no different. "Hey, you are only allowed to use half or a quarter of the RAM in your server unless you buy 2 or 4 times as many licenses as you needed to operate yesterday"
Same same as far as I am concerned. And VMware may well get the same treatment that Brocade would likely get if they tried that approach.
This isn't the same thing at all. You are perfectly free to use your current licenses as you currently do. This is a new licensing model and going forward if you want to use the new product it will be under the new model. When Brocade has a new fibre switch and you want to use it you need to purchase the new version and all the HBA's, cables, management software etc. at the prevailing rate.
DSTAVERT wrote:
There isn't much to be gained posting here other than getting on record. If you actually do have an issue rather than just an opinion on the issue then consider spending the time with your VMware rep or VMware reseller. Get some direct help understanding the impact on your organization. Perhaps there are options you don't see or other ways to mitigate the effects of the change.
Going on record right now is very important, it's to get numbers out there before we see them in VMWare's stocks when sales fall through when accounting gets word on vSphere 5 being too costly and restrictive.
DSTAVERT wrote:
Charles Braun wrote:
If Brocade came to me tomorrow and said "Hey, you are only allowed to push 2Gb through each port in your 32 port 4Gb fibre switch unless you pay for 32 more ports" they would be shown the door rather expediently.
The new license model is no different. "Hey, you are only allowed to use half or a quarter of the RAM in your server unless you buy 2 or 4 times as many licenses as you needed to operate yesterday"
Same same as far as I am concerned. And VMware may well get the same treatment that Brocade would likely get if they tried that approach.
This isn't the same thing at all. You are perfectly free to use your current licenses as you currently do. This is a new licensing model and going forward if you want to use the new product it will be under the new model. When Brocade has a new fibre switch and you want to use it you need to purchase the new version and all the HBA's, cables, management software etc. at the prevailing rate.
Sorta, you have 30 days to move your licences to vSphere 5 (so, pay upgrade and support for a year, but you must make the decision to get your money's worth in 30 days), after that you have to buy the licences all over again to upgrade. Kinda garbage.
On top of that, I can't downgrade licences from v5 to v4 (vRAM will apply to all new licences), so everyone will be limited to their current infrastructure size.
This is pretty much what every vmware consultant would want and is exactly what they've been asking for in all these busy community threads / blogs. I don't think any of us were insensible about vmware making money (heck I would want them to make lot of money for a long time to come so I too can make money using my vmware certifications) but the current licensing model if UNREASONABLE due to unacceptably low limits.
So Thanks billal for finally suggesting something sensible and let's hope just like you did the powers be at VMWARE (or EMC) would come to the same senses. Otherwise a mass Exodus from vmware would only play in to the hands of MS and Xen and I don't think anyone would want that.
vExperts are not all completely out of sense after all.
Sent from my iPhone
My point is other than getting on record, talk directly to the people who can sit down and see your problem and perhaps do something. Just complaining doesn't necessarily help anything. After a while it is just more noise. If your VMware rep sat down with you and worked through your individual case they would have something concrete to present to management.
True and how many business out there utilize them? They are mostly used by the big players at least a majority of those tools are.
MS OS and products like office are all over the place regardless...
Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com
DSTAVERT wrote:
My point is other than getting on record, talk directly to the people who can sit down and see your problem and perhaps do something. Just complaining doesn't necessarily help anything. After a while it is just more noise. If your VMware rep sat down with you and worked through your individual case they would have something concrete to present to management.
I'll be talking to our partner on Monday after dicussing the situation with our company, but I also need to make my frustration known publically, not just internally.
Thank you for your comments. I think its a reasonable request to make. But again in spite of all that we should still run the scripts to figure out the difference in cost in all our envirnoments regardless... just to have an idea..
Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com
I think that shouldn't be any caps on per CPU at all, maybe per host on physical RAM as used to be before.
As the coleague said the oversubscrition makes less sense now.
For those who are looking for alternatives, aren't you guys seriously considering Hyper-V ?!?! Xen fine, but Hyper-V? Come on.
Linux KVM is the guy comming to stay and enterprise ready.
I have a network to run. The last thing I need is to have to spend time "getting help" from third parties so I can "understand the impact on my organization" when I changed nothing. VMware changed their licensing model.
Lame, lame, lame.
And, yes, I can stay on 4.1. But I doubt VMware is willing to refund me my annual subscription costs and allow me to use less expensive "pay-per-incident" support. So for our shop, the impact is I should not have purchased dual-socket Cisco UCS servers with 192GB of RAM. To fully leverage those servers under v5.0, I have to spend more on VMware licenses than I actually spent on the Cisco hardware.
Again, lame.
Bilal wrote:
Thank you for your comments. I think its a reasonable request to make. But again in spite of all that we should still run the scripts to figure out the difference in cost in all our envirnoments regardless... just to have an idea..
Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com
A lot of the issue doesn't stem from "what we're currently using" so much as the glass ceiling this imposes on us, which is one of the main reasons we want to virtualize.
Sure, let's say I'm maybe at like 90% utilization of available RAM (being as now we allocate on vRAM) under the new licencing model (in theory, we're buying soon so really the numbers are totally screwed for us)... sure I don't have to buy anymore licenses, VMWare is saying I'm perfect under their new licencing model! However before I was at 40% utilization of RAM (being as all we cared about then was pRAM) under my old license. I have a lot of room to grow and could provision a VM without second though and allocate one-server-per-service setups without a thought. Now I have to start consolidating RAM usage... VMWare is taking that freedom away from me and binding me tightly again. I might as well buy physical hardware if I want to deal with this "go ask accounting" every time I want to spin up a handful of machines again.
This would only be good if VMWare was announcing that 95% of us would be paying less and only 5% of us would be paying the same. As opposed to what we have now, which is that 95% of us will have a glass ceiling imposed on us, and 5% of us are having to pay out the ass to stay were we are.
Fernando wrote:
get rid of the 'genius' who came up with this idea.
In before they give this guy a reward or something.
http://events.computerworld.com/ehome/CWHONORS2011/21133/?&categoryid=57262&%3FWT.ac=fr_hp_sp3r2
Oops too late.
Everyone understands the frustration. Anytime there are changes to licensing it will have impact and frustration. Have you run one of the scripts and posted the results? Just post after post doesn't do much other than increase the noise and dilute the real value of how a particular situation is impacted.
DSTAVERT wrote:
Everyone understands the frustration. Anytime there are changes to licensing it will have impact and frustration. Have you run one of the scripts and posted the results? Just post after post doesn't do much other than increase the noise and dilute the real value of how a particular situation is impacted.
The script doesn't take into account the ability to grow, just whether or not we have to spend money the day they roll out the new licencing, which is a brilliant way for VMWare to dodge the issue.
Though I'll be glad to grab all of our physical statistics and post it, our planned VMWare infrastructure as of 4.x, the cost, the cost of 5.x, and the cost to spin up more VMs before and after, and basically how they took VMWare's TCO and bumped it higher in a time when other Hypervisors are catching up. Remember we're looking at "$x to get started, plus ability to grow to y consumption for not any more money except hardware", now it's basically "get gutted every step of the way with VMWare only, where all other Hypervisors don't".
I can understand why vEs want to wave their hand and say everything will be ok, being as you guys have spent a decent amount of money in certs and the like, but if anything I think you guys should be the most upset considering how many partners and vendors are having canceled orders.
And again, we have to talk to accounting about these things, I can't wave my hand and start talking about how "well, we don't have to pay anymore now, but if our VMs need some extra RAM, it's going to be a few grand for the RAM, and $7k for the licencing". They'll start asking why don't we go Hyper-V again.
Well mr Dstavert.. Just as someone else pointed out if it was a change that was fair then OK... But this change is just right stupid!
I am not trying to defend VMware. Changing licensing models are a fact of life and happen all the time. The first I remember affecting me was Microsoft NT 3.1 where there were no CALs required. Big change in NT 3.5. From what I understand the VMware change was not expected to affect very many situations. If it has directly affected you it is important to make your case and get VMware involved. If there are more affected than the expected numbers then it is far more important to post numbers and situations than just firing off insults. Get the numbers before the people that can make a difference. Post them here http://communities.vmware.com/thread/321065?tstart=0
DSTAVERT wrote:
I am not trying to defend VMware. Changing licensing models are a fact of life and happen all the time. The first I remember affecting me was Microsoft NT 3.1 where there were no CALs required. Big change in NT 3.5. From what I understand the VMware change was not expected to affect very many situations. If it has directly affected you it is important to make your case and get VMware involved. If there are more affected than the expected numbers then it is far more important to post numbers and situations than just firing off insults. Get the numbers before the people that can make a difference. Post them here http://communities.vmware.com/thread/321065?tstart=0
I think what DSTAVERT is suggesting is reasonable guys. Let's act like professionals here and follow the process. Its understood that you guys are less than pleased with what has happened. Let's do what has been put in place to rectify that.
Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com
bilalhashmi wrote:
I think what DSTAVERT is suggesting is reasonable guys. Let's act like professionals here and follow the process. Its understood that you guys are less than pleased with what has happened. Let's do what has been put in place to rectify that.
What process? What has been put in place? Are you saying that running some scripts that some volunteers put together will somehow rectify things? Those scripts only tell you what you're using today, not what you'll be using tomorrow, next month, or next year.
If I run those scripts today, they'll tell me nothing useful. My current ESX hosts have 32GB of RAM each. I'm running Enterprise, so even with aggressive RAM oversubscription (which I haven't yet needed to do), I'd show no need for additional licensing under the new licensing regime.
However, those scripts can't take into account the huge new ERP application I'm just about to roll out--one which is going to use enough RAM that I'm going to be replacing my current servers with ones that have 96GB of RAM apiece. And you can forget about maxing those servers out to the 288GB they can hold.
I'm staying on ESX 4.1 for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, in my environment, I don't foresee needing to add ESX/ESXi hosts for at least the next three years, so I can probably just stay on 4.1. But other customers aren't so lucky, and some of them will get absolutely hammered from this new pricing model.
Complaining here does nothing for any of your future plans. Make your VMware rep aware of your future plans and how you may be affected in the future.