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?

[Dracolith]

SeanLeyne wrote:

2 Seconds!!!!

If find that ... impossible.

If we assume a transfer rate of 10Gb/s (which no disk/SSD/disk array in existence can actually achieve) take at least 54 minutes (3277 secs) to perform the transfer.

A 4TB  LUN can be used as the target for  a Virtual Mode RDM   made  in  2 seconds.

And  10 gigabits  is possible  for then storage vMotioning the VM with that Virtual mode RDM into a VMDK on another array...  it just depends on the network capabilities of the storage system, and how many spindles  (or SSDs)

the volume is spread across.

[JAndrews42]

SeanLeyne wrote:

JAndrews wrote:

Migrating a 4TB LUN attached to a physical server to a virtual one takes around 2 seconds with vSphere5, with no excessive admin overhead.

2 Seconds!!!!

If find that ... impossible.

If we assume a transfer rate of 10Gb/s (which no disk/SSD/disk array in existence can actually achieve) take at least 54 minutes (3277 secs) to perform the transfer.

I'd make a video but I don't have physical servers in my demo environment.  Dracolith has it right, take the 4 (or 8 or 16)TB LUN and make it the target of a RDM.

Couple of clicks and poof that drive is virtualized w/o any copying needed. 

[JAndrews42]

Dracolith wrote:

And  10 gigabits  is possible  for then storage vMotioning the VM with that Virtual mode RDM into a VMDK on another array...  it just depends on the network capabilities of the storage system, and how many spindles  (or SSDs)

the volume is spread across.

Almost forgot - a LUN >2TB can only be physical mode since you can't create a snapshot of a RDM >2TB

I'll throw a blog post up on sostech.wordpress.com maybe later tonight.

one last thing  it is ludacris to compare a hyperthreaded Intel logical core to a physical AMD core.  Real hardware beats an extra queue every time.

[Dracolith]

hmtk1976 wrote:

@ Dracolith:  You're joking, right?  Please tell me you're joking!  I've never heard or even considered a crazy setup like that.

What,  the vCenter server on some admin's workstation?    I've actually seen an org doing that.      For an  enterprise environment; anyone with multiple admins,  VMware update manager, and  vCenter-based services such as backup, it would obviously be very crazy.   For a small business with  1   in-house  IT person  running   one ESXi  server  and maybe 4 VMs,  who can justify the cost of essentials but not extra Windows licenses....  it's weird, but  apparently _some_ do it... and it saves money, well, sort of.

I was more bothered by the folks with the  MS Exchange VM  running on the free  VMware SERVER application (not ESX(i));  Windows 2008 guest OS on top of an underpowered XP host  with  3 other VMs.

But it's beside the point that VS5 doesn't save _everyone_ a Windows license.     Virtualization users are diverse bunch,

some benefitting from vs5 some not, esp. at Standard/Essentials level, with widely varying requirements and widely

varying ability and willingness to pay extra for VS5.

And VMware should take that into account.

Rather than raise prices/restrict all users across the board,  because some Enterprise/Enterprise+

customers have some fancy new  features   that  VMware spent a lot of R&D dollars to develop.

Perhaps they would consider giving    Essentials and Standard Editions  Unlimited vRAM?

E.g.   Establish vRAM entitlements  only for  the Enterprise  editions that actually get new beneficial

features from the upgrade?

[aroudnev]

I saw vCENGER running on XP and it was running pretty well (to be correct, on VM with Windows XP). Why someone need the whole windows server to run small database with the management system to manage 50 - 100 VM guests (so the total number of all objects is few thousands)?

It's really nothimng wrong with such configurations.

[J1mbo]

> VMware should take that into account...Rather than raise prices/restrict all users across the board, because some Enterprise/Enterprise+ customers have some fancy new  features that VMware spent a lot of R&D dollars to develop....Perhaps they would consider giving Essentials and Standard Editions unlimited vRAM?

Very good point, the current model restricts everything twice (vRAM and physical CPU); should be one-or-the-other.  Licensing Ess/Std on physical CPU only - Capex+Sns - and Ent/+ on vRAM only - monthly subscription - would seem very logical.

As for Ess in particular, there is no reason to move to v5 at all; it simply adds vRAM restriction with no benefits I can see.

[wdroush1]

SeanLeyne wrote:

JAndrews wrote:

aroudnev wrote:

Hmm; are you going to directly migrate (HW -> VMFS) 4 TB disk? How long it will take - 1 week?

I should use iSCSI if I need so big disk; and I can always add 5 x 2 TB LUN-s and create 10 TB NTFS or ext3 fs using OS level volume manager.

Migrating a 4TB LUN attached to a physical server to a virtual one takes around 2 seconds with vSphere5, with no excessive admin overhead.

2 Seconds!!!!

If find that ... impossible.

If we assume a transfer rate of 10Gb/s (which no disk/SSD/disk array in existence can actually achieve) take at least 54 minutes (3277 secs) to perform the transfer.

Remember: You're not converting it to a full blown VMDK on VMFS, this process takes the LUN and directly attaches it to the VM as a raw device, so the binary on the LUN isn't touched. It's a handy trick with pros/cons (pros: fast, cons: no snapshots, deltas, etc).

[JAndrews42]

wdroush1 wrote:

Remember: You're not converting it to a full blown VMDK on VMFS, this process takes the LUN and directly attaches it to the VM as a raw device, so the binary on the LUN isn't touched. It's a handy trick with pros/cons (pros: fast, cons: no snapshots, deltas, etc).

And of course if the LUN/RDM was <2TB you could have snapshots etc.

And of course if your 4+TB LUN was on a good storage platform (I know NetApp can do it, I assume EMC, Equallogic maybe HDS can) you can use the storage vendor tools from inside the VM to snapshot the RDM.

As mentioned, a blog post/walk through on importing a 4TB LUN as an RDM

http://wp.me/p1cl48-8m

Now back to your regularly scheduled licensing discussion...

[wdroush1]

JAndrews wrote:

wdroush1 wrote:

Remember: You're not converting it to a full blown VMDK on VMFS, this process takes the LUN and directly attaches it to the VM as a raw device, so the binary on the LUN isn't touched. It's a handy trick with pros/cons (pros: fast, cons: no snapshots, deltas, etc).

And of course if the LUN/RDM was <2TB you could have snapshots etc.

Oh, didn't know that, how does VMWare take care of the deltas? Does it just create a VMDK to map over the raw device? Seems kinda dangerous being as the VMDK has no clue about the raw device's status (a LUN can change sizes and whatnot).

[JAndrews42]

wdroush1 wrote:

JAndrews wrote:

wdroush1 wrote:

Remember: You're not converting it to a full blown VMDK on VMFS, this process takes the LUN and directly attaches it to the VM as a raw device, so the binary on the LUN isn't touched. It's a handy trick with pros/cons (pros: fast, cons: no snapshots, deltas, etc).

And of course if the LUN/RDM was <2TB you could have snapshots etc.

Oh, didn't know that, how does VMWare take care of the deltas? Does it just create a VMDK to map over the raw device? Seems kinda dangerous being as the VMDK has no clue about the raw device's status (a LUN can change sizes and whatnot).

When you switch your <2TB RDM to "Virtual" you can take snapshots/deltas etc. The new VMDKs will reside in your default working directory (see http://sostech.wordpress.com/2011/03/22/my-snapshots-are-where/ ) and just like with normal VMDK they hold a copy of any block that changes, so each one can grow up to the max size of the "parent". 

If anyone is going to VMworld in Vegas look me up for a drink.

[RJC75]

I will be out of the office returning, 16th Aug 2011. Please contact EFT.IS in case of an emergency.

[aroudnev]

Btw, this would make sence for me for example - if Essential has pRAM and pCPU restrictions as before, and Standard/Enterprise have vRAM and vCPU restrictions (but not any pRAM or pCPU restrictions). Free version should not have vRAM restriction (it p[rohibits it from any usage) but can have pRAM and pCPU (I means core when I say CPU) restrictions, it make sense,.

Both restrictions together means no any sense in new model and prohibits many cutsomers from migration to v5.

[rbtwindude]

NO MORE HYPERVISOR VENDOR LOCK-IN ::::::::::::::::: AWESOME!

This is very interesting to be able to manage any hypervisors from Virtual Center.

This is the day I have been looking for, one management window for all. Extend my VC to support cross platform support (vmware/KVM/Hyper-V/Citrix Xen)!

The thing is a lot of the feature rich stuff comes from VC (HA/DRS rules/plugins/etc).

You heard it here first - Some companies will start to look at Tiered virtual environments going forward (this HV for this and this one for that). The licensing on vSphere 5 (vTax) has changed the game. However I think VMware did good job with the quick fix for most.

UVP - Unified Virtual Platform

www.hotlink.com<;http://www.hotlink.com>

I sure hope they let this mature.

[SWilliams1968]

I am out of the office until Friday, August 19th with limited access to email. I will respond as I have the opportunity. If your request requires immediate attention please contact:

Netcare: Bryce Southern at 620-664-6000 x133 or bryces@nmgi.com

Services: Adella Luna at 620-664-6000 x121 or adellal@nmgi.com

Sales: Ken McClelland at 620-664-6000 x131 or kenm@nmgi.com

Thanks,

Sean Williams

[DSeaman]

Remember that MS SCVMM 2012 also provides excellent support for vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer. MS doesn't claim SCVMM 2012 will replace vCenter, but for day-to-day tasks and building private clouds, SCVMM will be a good option. If you already have systems center licenses with software assurance, the upgrade will be free. 

[VidarK]

DSTAVERT wrote:

And using your logic you shouldn't need to pay Microsoft a per seat license since you've already purchased the server license. The Microsoft license model says if you are going to use more of the services the software provides you pay for the privilege. If Microsoft did not have a per seat model how do you think a server license would be priced if companies could buy that monster server and one Windows Server license. It would either be out of reach of the smaller company or they would need to come up with a model that allowed for use based pricing. Per seat licensing makes the software viable for a range of situations. You pay for use. Why should that not be the same for VMware. Since servers are becoming larger and capable of unbelievable VM densities it doesn't seem fair that we as customers should punish VMware for making a product that can make use of that capability.

Perhaps the real problem is the software that runs our businesses. We should demand that software be written that uses less resources.

Actually the Microsoft per seat license is a client license to use a specific service that the server runs... file and print etc. You can run 100s of MS Windows web servers withing paying CALs for your 10000 users running whatever OS (Linux?) except if they need to use file and print etc.

Of course if you have 10000 users that need file and print from a Windows server then you pay the license per user and you can run 10000 servers if need be - paying for simply the per-socket-license of Windows Server Datacenter edition in additions to the CALs (and again - those cals are to access a specific service.)

The core vSphere virtualizes a server. It does not provide any client service. That's why arguments like yours are ridiculous.

[VidarK]

Duncan wrote:

VidarK wrote:

I do notice one thing from the postingings from VMware both in forum and in private messages. They are refusing to comment on the legal aspects of their license change....

As any company out there VMware has spokespeople for specific topics. You reached out to random VMware employees, including myself, who are not entitled to make statements around this topic. I have forwarded your request to the appropriate team, that is the best I can do for you.

Duncan

Yellow-Bricks.com

vSphere 5 Clustering Deepdive - e-book

Over a week and still no answer from VMware on this. I wonder why VMware cannot defend publicly the legality of their license change to existing SnS customers? Is it because it's illegal and they rather stay away from showing that to all their existing customers?

[kmcferrin]

DSeaman wrote:

Remember that MS SCVMM 2012 also provides excellent support for vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer. MS doesn't claim SCVMM 2012 will replace vCenter, but for day-to-day tasks and building private clouds, SCVMM will be a good option. If you already have systems center licenses with software assurance, the upgrade will be free.

It can't replace vCenter (neither can Citrix's management console) because the APIs that vCenter uses to communicate with/control the hypervisor are not public.  Both Citrix and Microsoft manage VMware farms by using the publicly available APIs exposed by vCenter, which then does the dirty work behind the scenes.

[wdroush1]

kmcferrin wrote:

DSeaman wrote:

Remember that MS SCVMM 2012 also provides excellent support for vSphere, Hyper-V and XenServer. MS doesn't claim SCVMM 2012 will replace vCenter, but for day-to-day tasks and building private clouds, SCVMM will be a good option. If you already have systems center licenses with software assurance, the upgrade will be free.

It can't replace vCenter (neither can Citrix's management console) because the APIs that vCenter uses to communicate with/control the hypervisor are not public.  Both Citrix and Microsoft manage VMware farms by using the publicly available APIs exposed by vCenter, which then does the dirty work behind the scenes.

The APIs that Citrix and Microsoft use are open?

Tisk tisk VMWare.

[rbtwindude]

Once we can test we should re-discuss this. I just don't see it replacing VC.

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