My question to VMware: is what _is_ VRAM? Is this the amount you configure a VM for in VM > Edit Settings?
Do powered off/suspended VMs count as using VRAM?
If I use VMware FT, does both the primary and secondary VMs count against my VRAM usage?
Is VRAM the amount you've set resource pool/VM reservations too?
Is this the average of the sum of "Active Memory" values of all your VMs?
How does this work if you have standalone hosts not managed by a vCenter?
Is the VMware software going to start powering off VMs or refusing to power on VMs,
if the vRAM license limit is exceeded?
My other question to VMware is: What exactly are the Enhancements in vSphere5 that cause the new version to be an improvement
for users DESPITE the adverse license changes?
What are the enhancements in vSphere5 that justify the additional cost and improve :
* vHypervisor deployments
* vSphere Essentials datacenter deployments
* vSphere Essentials Plus datacenter deployments
* vSphere Standard datacenter deployments
VMFS and vMotion improvements don't really count, as those are minor incremental improvements,
that are helpful, but not necessary -- they don't make anything possible that was impossible before.
Memory dense environments are surely common, with new hardware, and cheap RAM, getting
even cheaper per GB. Now VMware is in certain cases making the software cost of buying more
RAM to use immediately greater than the hardware cost.
Original selling point of VMware software is lower costs.
Anything getting in the way of that must be a bug or defect (whether intentional or not).
VMware marketing sold vSphere with calculators showing the competition's costs were higher due to more hardware required,
resulting in higher license and hardware costs for competing hypervisors.
Now we have VMware in a new vLicensing scheme requiring users to pay licensing _as if they had_ more hardware.
Surely if a new version is more expensive or restrictive than a previous version you have a concrete justification for that and we expect that to reflect something _very_ good has already been added to the new version to make it so much more valuable than the previous version was.
If the "compelling features" are not created yet, then DELAY any price increase, until they are added, and the case has been made.
Price increases are a misfeature. Is the lack of new features to justify it an indication from VMware that vSphere
is already as good as it can be, and the only direction from here is down?
Something with huge benefits for a majority of environments, to justify all the new costs.
Something far better than incremental updates/bugfixes/minor performance increases.
