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SuperSpike
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Contributor

vSphere 5 Licensing

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?

@Virtual_EZ
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TysonL201110141
Contributor
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Thanks for mentioning that. I missed the announcement somhow.

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sergeadam
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Bilal wrote:

Pricing with pRAM model will be a conflict of interest for VMware. Why would they enhance memory overcommitment in the future if they know they can charge more by forcing users to put in more pRAM in the servers. IMO vRAM is the right approach, however, the entitlements have room for revision.

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

Because regardless how good they make memory overcommitment, it's no substitute of pRAM. I don't think any of overcommits used memory. I know I don't. I'll try to commit vRAM close to pRAM. Overcommitment comes from RAM requirments vs. true use. But regardless, I'm not going to overcommit more than 10%. So there is a point where I'll add RAM anyways.

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cvbarney
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rjb2 wrote:

There is a v5 licensing webinar TODAY and attendees will be able to participate in live Q&A via text with VMware product marketing managers. This could get really interesting.

Here are the dates and link to register:

http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere5-licensing-webinar

Monday, July 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Monday, July 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Thursday, August 18th at 9 a.m. Pacific

I was really looking forward, but disapointed... No new information, nothing about limits on free/Essentials or any changes to the new licensing.

Q&A box still empty! Only the word "Submitted" but no answer....

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elrodt
Contributor
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Running two cluster with 5 hosts each, all with 256GB of Ram and 2 6 core processors, with this pricing model instead of 20 licenses I would have to have 54 Licenses.

Someone was on drugs when they came up with this licensing idea. It would ~double our costs to upgrade from 4.1; needless to say, we will be running 4.1 while also looking at other options because of this insanity of revenue generation.

I left VMWare before for Virtual Iron till Oracle bought it out, am more than willing to move to something else yet again to keep the cost down to my internal customers.

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waynej
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cvbarney wrote:

rjb2 wrote:

There is a v5 licensing webinar TODAY and attendees will be able to participate in live Q&A via text with VMware product marketing managers. This could get really interesting.

Here are the dates and link to register:

http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere5-licensing-webinar

Monday, July 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Monday, July 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Thursday, August 18th at 9 a.m. Pacific

I was really looking forward, but disapointed... No new information, nothing about limits on free/Essentials or any changes to the new licensing.

Q&A box still empty! Only the word "Submitted" but no answer....

There were some questions answered, but the whole session made my head explode.  The response of "the vast majority of customers will see no license cost increase" just boggles the mind.  One such question and answer:

"Why did you model the licensing on a 2006 model of 24GB per cpu?  We are in mid 2011."

"Based on the our data the current level of entitlements will satisfy the requirements of over 95% of our customer base.  Please run this tool to determine your needs and let us know what you find out...."

I loved how the Senior Director of Marketing stated we can IMPROVE our utilization of vSphere under the new model and that it was less restrictive.  Up is down.

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wdroush1
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elrodt wrote:

Running two cluster with 5 hosts each, all with 256GB of Ram and 2 6 core processors, with this pricing model instead of 20 licenses I would have to have 54 Licenses.

Someone was on drugs when they came up with this licensing idea. It would ~double our costs to upgrade from 4.1; needless to say, we will be running 4.1 while also looking at other options because of this insanity of revenue generation.

I left VMWare before for Virtual Iron till Oracle bought it out, am more than willing to move to something else yet again to keep the cost down to my internal customers.

*43 licenses. Using N-1 available vRAM without overallocation.

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wdroush1
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Wayne wrote:

cvbarney wrote:

rjb2 wrote:

There is a v5 licensing webinar TODAY and attendees will be able to participate in live Q&A via text with VMware product marketing managers. This could get really interesting.

Here are the dates and link to register:

http://www.vmware.com/go/vsphere5-licensing-webinar

Monday, July 18th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Monday, July 25th at 10 a.m. Pacific

Thursday, August 18th at 9 a.m. Pacific

I was really looking forward, but disapointed... No new information, nothing about limits on free/Essentials or any changes to the new licensing.

Q&A box still empty! Only the word "Submitted" but no answer....

There were some questions answered, but the whole session made my head explode.  The response of "the vast majority of customers will see no license cost increase" just boggles the mind.  One such question and answer:

"Why did you model the licensing on a 2006 model of 24GB per cpu?  We are in mid 2011."

"Based on the our data the current level of entitlements will satisfy the requirements of over 95% of our customer base.  Please run this tool to determine your needs and let us know what you find out...."

I loved how the Senior Director of Marketing stated we can IMPROVE our utilization of vSphere under the new model and that it was less restrictive.  Up is down.

Marketing: They always understand IT.

Oh wait.

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waynej
Contributor
Contributor

Another great question and answer:

"So in a 'real' deployment like what I just deployed, with 6 blades with 2 proc and 512 of memory each I would need to add 36 more Enterprise Plus licenses to have all the memory in my pool?  How is this a benefit to me?  Today I am fully licensed."

The answer that boggles the mind:

"Maybe not today, but in 12 months you will have to add more licenses of vSphere 4.x because your servers will be above the core limit.  Plus you should account the amount of infrastructure that is dedicated for HA.  You don't have to license that with the new model."

Yes, his dual proc server that is fully licensed today is going to somehow need more vSphere 4 licenses in a year.

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ITDir
Contributor
Contributor

After sitting through the VMware Pricing and Packaging Webcast, remarkably, I am even more frustrated than before.  Four or five serious questions posed by users in my situation (150% to 200% price increase) received the "go use the tool..." answer.  vSphere 5 Licensing is "simplier", "non-disruptive", and won't affect "most" users.  Right.  No attempt to even recognize the frustration.  Might as well say "go jump off a bridge..."

I am trying to be pragmatic about the situation.  Two years ago, I _might_ have said "Wow, 32GB per processor is somewhat reasonable".  Not today, though.  If we move to vSphere 5, we have to now budget for "utilization growth" on hardware (with 96GB per processor) that is already in place.  VMware is demonstrating they are no partner... just a vendor.

Maybe we'll get lucky and Paul Maritz will get "unexpetedly fired" by the VMware Board of Directors.  Smiley Happy  Well, I know that won't happen just like it's obvious that I'll be paying VMware maintenance costs on a product I can't afford to upgrade. 

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rjb2
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Wayne wrote:

"Based on the our data the current level of entitlements will satisfy the requirements of over 95% of our customer base.  Please run this tool to determine your needs and let us know what you find out...."

I loved how the Senior Director of Marketing stated we can IMPROVE our utilization of vSphere under the new model and that it was less restrictive.  Up is down.

If over 95% of their customers will have their requirements satisfied with the current entitlements, why are there virtually none voicing their opinion here?

In an earlier post, we requested that VMWare fully disclose the underlying data, but there was no response. What kind of advertising is this?

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Rumple
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Well, lets put it this way...vmware must NOT expecting any new revenue from this today (or less then 5%) so...lets all be good customers and make sure they meet their targets.

I will continue to run my environment based on the hardware I purchased today, based on my own vRAM targets and I will ignore the box that states that I am over my entitlement level because obviously without expecting new revenue as we are all ok today, they won't be looking to come after existing customers to see if they are over the limits (which are not relevant).

When I buy my new servers, then I will worry about the licensing...

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bilalhashmi
Expert
Expert

rjb2 wrote:

If over 95% of their customers will have their requirements satisfied with the current entitlements, why are there virtually none voicing their opinion here?

In an earlier post, we requested that VMWare fully disclose the underlying data, but there was no response. What kind of advertising is this?

Interestingly from the data that I have collected 59.13% of the cutomers will have to pay 2,3 or even 4 times us much. Only 25.55% will either pay less or the same. 15.33% of the customers stated the change will ruin their future plan.. This is from a sample size of 137 which IMO is a decent size...

I would be interested in seeing VMware's numbers myself...

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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wdroush1
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Bilal wrote:

This is from a sample size of 137 which IMO is a decent size...

Go back to statistics 101. Smiley Wink You have a margin of error ~9%.

To be any kind of decent too, especially considering the confusion of vRAM and people's inability to distinguish "cost now, vs cost later" and people thinking they'll be paying less (hah, no, sorry, vRAM licencing is still pCPU bound) shows that basically you need to gather infrastructure and license numbers and crunch it yourself to be any kind of accurate.

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rjb2
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Bilal wrote:

Interestingly from the data that I have collected 59.13% of the cutomers will have to pay 2,3 or even 4 times us much. Only 25.55% will either pay less or the same. 15.33% of the customers stated the change will ruin their future plan.. This is from a sample size of 137 which IMO is a decent size...

I would be interested in seeing VMware's numbers myself...

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

cloud buddy - I would suggest that the 15% with ruined future plans could have answered that the cost was going to be higher and that most of the 60% who are faced with 2-4x increase could also answer that their plans were ruined

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bilalhashmi
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Expert

wdroush1 wrote:

Go back to statistics 101. Smiley Wink You have a margin of error ~9%.

Yes Smiley Happy

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Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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bilalhashmi
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Expert

I have no reason to disagree.. I would think so as well.. if you have to pay more that does impact your future plans..

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Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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wdroush1
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Bilal wrote:

wdroush1 wrote:

Go back to statistics 101. Smiley Wink You have a margin of error ~9%.

Yes Smiley Happy

Follow me @ Cloud-Buddy.com

9% is really high when you're banking on that 25% that says they wont be affected. :smileysilly:

Also you have to take into account the demographic of people reading your blog: terrible, terrible people (I kid, I kid. Smiley Wink, more seriously a handful of vExperts and the like).

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bilalhashmi
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I am not suggesting the 25% is a number to be proud of either. I am disappointed with that as well considering it can really be much lower than that..

Also you have to take into account the demographic of people reading your blog: terrible, terrible people (I kid, I kid. Smiley Wink).

:smileylaugh:

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Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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URDaddy
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How the Hell do I get off of this community email list?

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bilalhashmi
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On the right towards the top see under 'Actions". Click on stop email notifications..

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Blog: www.Cloud-Buddy.com | Follow me @hashmibilal
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