vSphere 5 Licensing

[SuperSpike]

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?

[tonywoodabw]

XenDesktop on XenServer: Webinar

http://info.citrix-news.net/u/gm.php?prm=BoKwlwoZ1Y_121855739_94425_72021

[Josh26]

Hi,

I am currently on annual leave until 25th July. For support queries, please refer to our helpdesk, helpdesk@daraco.com.au.

For sales queries, please contact mjarvis@daraco.com.au.

[vmwareking]

XenServer is licensed per Host!

XenServer      Free

XenServer Advanced     - $1000/per server RRP USD

XenServer Enterprise    - $2500/per server RRP USD

XenServer Platinum      - $5000/per server RRP USD

check out the Edition - www.citrix.com/xenserver/editions

Here is a XenServer vs VMware Cost Calc - http://virtualizationandstorage.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/vmware-vsphere-vs-citrix-xenserver-cost-cal...

XenServer Free Edition includes XenMotion and SnapShots for Free..

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[hellraiser]

Is it just me or has this thread reached such a size that it is now causing weirdness with the forum software?  It told me there were 51 pages of replies, then when I went to page 51 it said there were none, and now it says the last post was on the 12th July.....

Help!

JD

[GVD]

Justin Devereaux wrote:

Is it just me or has this thread reached such a size that it is now causing weirdness with the forum software?  It told me there were 51 pages of replies, then when I went to page 51 it said there were none, and now it says the last post was on the 12th July.....

Help!

JD

I suspect Mods are just cleaning out the thread every once in a while too. (Which is not inherently a bad thing since obviously mentions of competitors are left untouched)

This morning there were 51 pages, I clicked from page 50 to 51, and got this message:

"There are no visible messages in this discussion. This can  happen if messages have been hidden by a moderator, or have been  reported as abusive."

I suspect this was cleaned out a bit, causing page 51 to be invalid by the time I clicked it.

[Marcel1967]

It seems Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware is not impressed by at least the number of hits, arguments against the new policy, real world data and complaints this thread gets.

Yesterday July 19, when Q2 results of VMware were reported, he said "We believe that 95 percent of customers will see no change in their licensing costs. From our calculations, most customers will see no change and won't be required to pay us more money," Maritz said in a Q&A during VMware's Q2 earnings call.

"At the higher end of the market, with customers that are squeezing every last drop and getting a high level of utilization out of their infrastructure, that's where [vSphere 5 licensing] will scale up," Maritz said. "That's a fair bargain to make, because that’s when they will start to get the full benefits of the cloud model."

http://www.crn.com/news/data-center/231002148/vmware-ceo-maritz-tries-to-clear-air-on-vsphere-licens...

Dutch press translated his sayings in 'vSphere 5 remains a bargain'

As said earlier in this thread, VMware seems to be slowly shifting its focus from the SMB market with low margins to the enterprise and enterprise plus markets. Large enterprises ready for private cloud and charge back models. SMB market will probably be surrendered to Microsoft and Citrix with their low cost to free solutions.

[MarkStrong]

GVD wrote:

Justin Devereaux wrote:

Is it just me or has this thread reached such a size that it is now causing weirdness with the forum software?  It told me there were 51 pages of replies, then when I went to page 51 it said there were none, and now it says the last post was on the 12th July.....

Help!

JD

I suspect Mods are just cleaning out the thread every once in a while too. (Which is not inherently a bad thing since obviously mentions of competitors are left untouched)

This morning there were 51 pages, I clicked from page 50 to 51, and got this message:

"There are no visible messages in this discussion. This can  happen if messages have been hidden by a moderator, or have been  reported as abusive."

I suspect this was cleaned out a bit, causing page 51 to be invalid by the time I clicked it.

I think it is because "vmwareking" has posted multiple identical messages and they got on the next page (page 51).

[vmroyale]

Hello.

There were a lot of duplicate posts from one user in this discussion and someone had reported it to the moderators.  We cleaned them up, so this would explain the drop from 51 pages to 50.

Good Luck!

[allenb1121]

I noticed that it was starting to act strangely after about 8 pages... I have just been following/replying through e-mail, because it was so frustrating to try to use the forum.

Allen B.

Allen Beddingfield

Systems Engineer

The University of Alabama

[wdroush1]

Marcel1967 wrote:

It seems Paul Maritz, CEO of VMware is not impressed by at least the number of hits, arguments against the new policy, real world data and complaints this thread gets.

Yesterday July 19, when Q2 results of VMware were reported, he said "We believe that 95 percent of customers will see no change in their licensing costs. From our calculations, most customers will see no change and won't be required to pay us more money," Maritz said in a Q&A during VMware's Q2 earnings call.

"At the higher end of the market, with customers that are squeezing every last drop and getting a high level of utilization out of their infrastructure, that's where [vSphere 5 licensing] will scale up," Maritz said. "That's a fair bargain to make, because that’s when they will start to get the full benefits of the cloud model."

http://www.crn.com/news/data-center/231002148/vmware-ceo-maritz-tries-to-clear-air-on-vsphere-licens...

Dutch press translated his sayings in 'vSphere 5 remains a bargain'

As said earlier in this thread, VMware seems to be slowly shifting its focus from the SMB market with low margins to the enterprise and enterprise plus markets. Large enterprises ready for private cloud and charge back models. SMB market will probably be surrendered to Microsoft and Citrix with their low cost to free solutions.

In before Maritz is a plant from Microsoft.

[chuckg03]

Amazing... looks like I'll have an opportunity to learn another system.  We're facing budget cuts as a result of sinking reimbursement forcasts from state and federal governments for healthcare, as well as continued high unemployment in our area.

A statement was made that many VMware customers will not see a change in their licensing.  Good for them.  But for us it looks like an additional $33,000+.  And let's not forget maintenance on those additional licenses.

Retirement is looking better all the time.

[tomaddox]

I was at a GemFire presentation last night, and, while it looks like cool technology, it may suffer from whatever the opposite of the "halo effect" is ("penumbra effect," perhaps?), at least in our environment. Thanks to VMware's attempt to bend us over with vSphere 5 licensing, I am now less likely to buy other products from them.

[bobbach]

We're feeling the pain to.

We just bought an HX5 blade 2x10 core processors and 320GB of ram.

Rather than needing my two sockets of licensing VMware will want seven licenses for this blade.

Just under $7,000 in licensing to more than $24,000.

That's a $17,000 memory tax.

VMware just became unaffordable for this server.

[Andreas_Besser]

Hello,

with the new licensing Paul Maritz has done a very well job, but for his old company Microsoft...

Maybe he is still listed on their payroll?

So after 8 years with VMware products we are now facing Hyper-V to be ready to migrate our own and numerous customer-systems when 4.1 sns-support expires the next months...

[couak]

From our calculations, most customers will see no change and won't be required to pay us more money

Because customers who migrate to another virtualization solution won't pay anything to VMware...

[MDK_BUHL]

This IS the perfect time for VMware to do this. Why?

Many users would continue to use VS 4.x. But then Windows 8 / Server 2012 comes in: It will only work with UEFI and not BIOS. VS 4.x does not have UEFI and perhaps never will!

So if you want to use Windows 8 / Server 2012 -> Upgrade to VS 5 and pay!!

Unbelievable!

MK

[egray]

Just out of curiosity, how much does a server like that cost?

[aroudnev]

Andreas Besser wrote:

Hello,

with the new licensing Paul Maritz has done a very well job, but for his old company Microsoft...

Maybe he is still listed on their payroll?

So after 8 years with VMware products we are now facing Hyper-V to be ready to migrate our own and numerous customer-systems when 4.1 sns-support expires the next months...

Absolutely; I had exactly the same feeling (about MS payroll). He made a good job but for the Microsoft (and for other vendors too). I don;'t imaging many idiots who will pay 3x - 10x via the new licensing when they all have alternatives (not so easy to deploy; but once deployed, they will work the same or even sometimes better - remember that XEN supports full Linux paravirtualization and MS supports full windows paravirtualization, while Vmware in reality don't suppiort any - we tested few wmi kernels including SLES10 wmi kernel and it was all the total disaster).

and it all surprise me. They could anticipate a great increase in revenuew due to the new technologies such as virtual desktops, but this new licensing kills almost all of them. So, again, it looks as someone was on MS payroll because there was not a better way to make more harm to VMware then they already did. And more important, people _ALREADY_ started to evaluate competitors - and this is one way road, unfortunately for VMware - once we switch to XEN for example we never return back (as we never planned to switch from VMware once we selected it - but we used durrent pricing to make selection).

And last but not least - cloud providers are not sticked with VMware at all; most uses another technologies, so this vRAM schema will not work for them as well.

[bobbach]

In the neighborhood of 35-40k once you add HBAs and 10G network adapters etc.

[JEDWARDS777FL]

It's not just small shops that will be hurt.  I'm a Datacenter Administrator for our organization.  We are in the process of building a new datacenter using Cisco UCS with VSphere Enterprise Plus.  Our new UCS environment will host 64 ESXi servers with just over 16 TB of RAM & over 128 ( 6 core) processors.  Under the old model we needed 128 Enterprise Plus licenses.  This ridiculous new model (if it stays as is) will require 214 ADDITIONAL licenses and that's with zero over commitment.  Over commitment, one of the key features, will take that number much higher.  Imagine going to your boss and saying, "I need another MILLION dollars on top of the 4 million I just spent, pretty please?"

Not only is this much more expensive, it's a huge headache.  Whomever came up with this hair brained idea wasn't thinking about small OR large customers!  I would rather that they increased the per license cost than make me account for vRAM when buying licenses.

Additionally, this idea that it makes it easier to "scale up gradually" is a farse.  You still have the per processor requirements and now you have a ceiling not only based upon performance but licensing as well!  REALLY VMWARE?

I've been loyal to VMWare for over 8 years and have absolutely LOVED everything about them until now....if this is the way things are going to be.... I might have to reconsider.