vSphere 5 Licensing

SuperSpike · ‎07-12-2011

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

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

JAndrews wrote:
ClueShell wrote:
We're talking about 25-40 desktops and we prefer upgrading the two
existing server-load boxes and buy a third and do vdi on them.
Buying two more servers just for the load-balance/high-av stuff and a
third new box for a dedicated vCenter is a waste of money, electricity,
time, and human resources to begin with.
VMware just made it easy for me, because with this "new facts" I don't
even need to think about going to management asking for funds. It's just
the short answer "Stay on current but soon old software with 2nd best
patches and QA from vendor or pay up triple to achieve our goals."
Assuming the patches for v5 will go throu more QA testing than the v4
series (most companies have this).
Please post screen shots of your current infrastructure, specifically # of VMs and configured RAM.
I have yet to see proof of someone being required to pay "triple" their current cost (tho of course that itself shouldn't be hard - your current cost is just the SnS contract)
Why would you need to buy "two more" plus "a third" servers?

Well he does have to buy an entire seperate hardware infrastructure which his computational requirements do not require purely over vTax, otherwise he's going to be eating vRAM with his VDI implementation (so on current hardware, I can see vTax being expensive, on new hardware... still expensive hardware).

Also with a company that small, I can totally see them being able to run essentials, but under v5 they may be over the 192GB limit, or definately will be with VDI.

With the new numbers, without overallocation and TPS, I can't really see triple costs unless you're talking about specific infrastructure setups (I could theorycraft these all day, and given the money I can utilize it), or being forced out of essentials. However if you heavily use any of the memory management features of VMWare, I can easily see you doing that, especially if you have workloads that favor swapping overallocated memory between servers, and a lot of like servers between few NUMA nodes.

AaronKratzmann · ‎08-25-2011

I am currently working part time. I am in the office Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. If you require urgent assistance please contact the IT Service Desk on ext 6999. Regards, Aaron

sergeadam · ‎08-25-2011

JAndrews wrote:
I have yet to see proof of someone being required to pay "triple" their current cost (tho of course that itself shouldn't be hard - your current cost is just the SnS contract)

i inherited a brand new, about to be deployed infrastructure. 2 R710, dual sockets, 96GB RAM, and 1 R710, dual sockets, 32GB RAM.

My predecessor's plan was to run ESX on the 96GB servers and SQL, non-virtualized on the 32GB server.

My plan was to upgrade RAM and go with a 3 server cluster. We have Essentials Plus. It really is all we need. Paid about $5K w/ 3 years SnS

To use those resources under v5, I'll need to upgrade to a Standard Kit. An additional $12K.

Where do you think I'm going???

ClueShell · ‎08-25-2011

@William Roush: Nice (and almost correct).

@JAndrews

3x IBM x3650 dual socket with 144 GB RAM go figure our licensing

increase.

Even enterprise with its 2x64 GB will not cover the machine(s). Go to

enterprise plus yea sure. We would have done great with advanced. We're

on standard lics right now.

I simply cannot go to management: "Hey buy three more servers two of

them for 17k each and another one for short of 6k, just because they

have changed the game." Management will response with: "Oh, since when

is VMware owned by Larry Ellison?"

JAndrews42 · ‎08-25-2011

ClueShell wrote:
@William Roush: Nice (and almost correct).
@JAndrews
3x IBM x3650 dual socket with 144 GB RAM go figure our licensing
increase.

Go figure, this has nothing to do with v5 licensing. Please post screen shots of the configured environment since cost is based on allocated vRAM.

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

sergeadam wrote:
My predecessor's plan was to run ESX on the 96GB servers and SQL, non-virtualized on the 32GB server.

If you have a SAN, why are you doing this?

We're virtualizing larger SQL boxes (though I'd argue our "larger" size is leveraging page-cache to compensate for really old code that may not be up to par in terms of performance).

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

JAndrews wrote:
ClueShell wrote:
@William Roush: Nice (and almost correct).
@JAndrews
3x IBM x3650 dual socket with 144 GB RAM go figure our licensing
increase.
Go figure, this has nothing to do with v5 licensing. Please post screen shots of the configured environment since cost is based on allocated vRAM.

My dev environments have almost always allocated more RAM than the box physically has (our entire dev network is virtualized, our production network is like 10-15% virtualized). :smileyplain: and this is on older whiteboxes that have a low amount of RAM per NUMA node compared to modern systems.

He can squeeze by on what he has right now (N+1 = 288 = 6x48gb, no TPS, no overallocation), but has lost all ability to grow (those boxes can pack x2 the amount of RAM into those).

Sorry, standard is 32GB/license, so he's looking at 192GB of usage out of 288GB with N+1 failover, no TPS, no overallocation. 1/3 of his redundant supported hardware is unused at worst in terms of virtualization consolidation practices.

ClueShell · ‎08-25-2011

screenshots schmeenshots

we planned that was like the time of vSphere 4.1 GA for such a

scenario. now comes vmware and everything different and complex now.

18 server-vm / average 4 GB / total 72 GB

2 server-vm / total 16 GB

7 server-test-vm / total 28 GB

2 server-stage-vm / total 12 GB

25 vdi-vm / 4 GB each / total 100 GB

12 vdi-dev-vm / average 6 GB / total 72 GB

---

total 300 GB / 66 vm / 36 cores (24 if one server fails)

ratio 1.83 or 2.75 per core

we don't care if everything runs a bit slower while recovery it just has

to run

we compensate by not powering on everything (many vm are just 'because

we could')

6x standard = 192 GB (108 short / 4 lics)

6x enterprise = 288 GB (2 short / 1 lics)

6x ent-plus = 576 GB (276 surplus / 0 lics)

from standard to enterprise the increase in costs is 2.5 times more for

licenses and sns coverage.

but with this scenario those many "admin and/or packager test vm's are

not counted" those types of VMs you throw away / power off if you have

the failover case. why should I let the third box be idle or barely

used?

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

ClueShell wrote:
screenshots schmeenshots
we planned that was like the time of vSphere 4.1 GA for such a
scenario. now comes vmware and everything different and complex now.
18 server-vm / average 4 GB / total 72 GB
2 server-vm / total 16 GB
7 server-test-vm / total 28 GB
2 server-stage-vm / total 12 GB
25 vdi-vm / 4 GB each / total 100 GB
12 vdi-dev-vm / average 6 GB / total 72 GB
---
total 300 GB / 66 vm / 36 cores (24 if one server fails)
ratio 1.83 or 2.75 per core
we don't care if everything runs a bit slower while recovery it just has
to run
we compensate by not powering on everything (many vm are just 'because
we could')
6x standard = 192 GB (108 short / 4 lics)
6x enterprise = 288 GB (2 short / 1 lics)
6x ent-plus = 576 GB (276 surplus / 0 lics)
from standard to enterprise the increase in costs is 2.5 times more for
licenses and sns coverage.
but with this scenario those many "admin and/or packager test vm's are
not counted" those types of VMs you throw away / power off if you have
the failover case. why should I let the third box be idle or barely
used?

Well you can buy 7x enterprise, but you're still limited to spinning up a handful of VMs before you have to buy more licensing.... Let alone you can turn around and put another 144GB of RAM in each of those servers, and have twice the scalability with any other hypervisor for multitudes cheaper.

Also, standard is 48GB/license, isn't it? Or is it really 32GB? If so my calcs are wrong.

Edit:

Yeah it's 32GB, I checked, you're paying more on all accounts as long as you're not totally incompitent in provisioning VMs.

sergeadam · ‎08-25-2011

William Roush wrote:
sergeadam wrote:
My predecessor's plan was to run ESX on the 96GB servers and SQL, non-virtualized on the 32GB server.
If you have a SAN, why are you doing this?

We're virtualizing larger SQL boxes (though I'd argue our "larger" size is leveraging page-cache to compensate for really old code that may not be up to par in terms of performance).

I'm not. I wanted to add 64GB to that 3rd server, runv ESX on it and have a 3 host cluster and virtusalize everything. But 288GB in Essentials Plus won't do. Even redistributing my existing RAM leaves me 32GB over.

aroudnev · ‎08-25-2011

This is dumb discussion. If someone install HW server with 144 GB or pRAM, he will eventually use 144 or even 160 (or even 256 if it is DEV) GB vRAM. Even if he don't use it JUST NOW.

New licensing means 2x - 3x increase EVEN NOW; guess what will it mean in a few years (answer is that it mean prohibiting price).

It DOES NOT make ANY sense WHAT DO THEY USE JUST NOW. For example we use less then 48 GB per server JUST NOW; but we already pull a full plug on any ideas to upgrade to v5 because it prohibits any HW improvements and it wil became absolutely senseless in a few years (and on the other hand we are good with v4 just now, so again it does not make anys sense how much vRAM do we use NOW - we don't need v5 licensing just now at all.).

Ask them what do they PLAN to use in 3 years - and you wil see that new licensing means at least 3x (maybe even 10x) price increase. And guess what they will do instead of paying vTAX?

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

aroudnev wrote:
This is dumb discussion. If someone install HW server with 144 GB or pRAM, he will eventually use 144 or even 160 (or even 256 if it is DEV) GB vRAM. Even if he don't use it JUST NOW.
New licensing means 2x - 3x increase EVEN NOW; guess what will it mean in a few years (answer is that it mean prohibiting price).
It DOES NOT make ANY sense WHAT DO THEY USE JUST NOW. For example we use less then 48 GB per server JUST NOW; but we already pull a full plug on any ideas to upgrade to v5 because it prohibits any HW improvements and it wil became absolutely senseless in a few years (and on the other hand we are good with v4 just now, so again it does not make anys sense how much vRAM do we use NOW - we don't need v5 licensing just now at all.).
Ask them what do they PLAN to use in 3 years - and you wil see that new licensing means at least 3x (maybe even 10x) price increase. And guess what they will do instead of paying vTAX?

And 3 years is a lot of time for the other hypervisors to catch up, they've done a ton in the past year alone.

aroudnev · ‎08-25-2011

Problem is that we purchase servers NOW but plan to use them (and upgrade) in next 3 years - and new model effectively kills any plans.

hmtk1976 · ‎08-25-2011

Please post screen shots of your current infrastructure, specifically # of VMs and configured RAM.
I have yet to see proof of someone being required to pay "triple" their current cost (tho of course that itself shouldn't be hard - your current cost is just the SnS contract)
Why would you need to buy "two more" plus "a third" servers?

I was tempted to press the Report Abuse button when I read your post. You should know very well that there isn't a problem for many customers NOW but there will be in the not so distant future. For Essentials customers the problem is even bigger due to the hard 192 GB limit. This make the product Essentially useless for a not so small SMB. I know, VMware always said Essentials was meant for up to 20 VM's but there was never any limit but 256 GB/host. With 6 sockets you can very reasonably expect people to want to run 512 GB of VM's on a 3 host cluster and have full failover for a host. Or do you think it's reasonable that you have throw out you Essentials license and buy 8/6 Enterprise/Enterprise Plus licenses instead? The difference in cost is staggering.

VMware must be run by a bunch of stupid beancounters detached from reality. They insist on a per CPU license AND impose a memory limit. It's one the other or going to the competition. vSphere is not that good that it can afford to keep on doing this. It's also pretty lame that for a FT guest both the primary and secondary count towards the vRAM limit.

wdroush1 · ‎08-25-2011

hmtk1976 wrote:
Please post screen shots of your current infrastructure, specifically # of VMs and configured RAM.
I have yet to see proof of someone being required to pay "triple" their current cost (tho of course that itself shouldn't be hard - your current cost is just the SnS contract)
Why would you need to buy "two more" plus "a third" servers?
I was tempted to press the Report Abuse button when I read your post. You should know very well that there isn't a problem for many customers NOW but there will be in the not so distant future. For Essentials customers the problem is even bigger due to the hard 192 GB limit. This make the product Essentially useless for a not so small SMB. I know, VMware always said Essentials was meant for up to 20 VM's but there was never any limit but 256 GB/host. With 6 sockets you can very reasonably expect people to want to run 512 GB of VM's on a 3 host cluster and have full failover for a host. Or do you think it's reasonable that you have throw out you Essentials license and buy 8/6 Enterprise/Enterprise Plus licenses instead? The difference in cost is staggering.
VMware must be run by a bunch of stupid beancounters detached from reality. They insist on a per CPU license AND impose a memory limit. It's one the other or going to the competition. vSphere is not that good that it can afford to keep on doing this. It's also pretty lame that for a FT guest both the primary and secondary count towards the vRAM limit.

Not to mention: You know your licensing is terrible when the licensing tier that is supposed to be targeted towards companies that have DATACENTERS are where companies with 3 racks of physical servers have to look.

ClueShell · ‎08-26-2011

@Roush: that was just too cool

Not to mention: You know your licensing is terrible when the licensing

tier that is supposed to be targeted towards companies that have

DATACENTERS are where companies with 3 racks of physical servers have to

look.

Oh and FT also not covered under vTax?! Seriously WTF?

How lame is this? Who came up with this? Should get fired immediatly.

Doing licensing on features that were made to consume resources that

fall under licensing now?

Sounds like the Challenger mission: "We now give the steering wheel to

the licensing guy." kaboom

Radio1 · ‎08-26-2011

I just have a stupid comment. I know not many people are reading this anymore.

I seems to me that the old licensing model limited your physical RAM, but not your virtual RAM.

The new licensing model limits your virtual Ram, not your virtual RAM.

It stands to reason that you would not over allocate on physical RAM. Who care that I can put 256Gigs of RAM in a box, if I can only assign 32Gigs to actually do anything.

It seems to me at a very minimum that Vmware should entitle current customers to at least as much vRam as that had entitlements for Physical RAM. This is the only way that it would seem like VMware was being even remotely fair and not ripping its current customers off.:smileyangry:

I can just imagine the next step... vCPU limitations. Think about it.:smileyconfused:

wdroush1 · ‎08-27-2011

Radio1 wrote:
I just have a stupid comment. I know not many people are reading this anymore.

I seems to me that the old licensing model limited your physical RAM, but not your virtual RAM.
The new licensing model limits your virtual Ram, not your virtual RAM.
It stands to reason that you would not over allocate on physical RAM. Who care that I can put 256Gigs of RAM in a box, if I can only assign 32Gigs to actually do anything.

It seems to me at a very minimum that Vmware should entitle current customers to at least as much vRam as that had entitlements for Physical RAM. This is the only way that it would seem like VMware was being even remotely fair and not ripping its current customers off.:smileyangry:

I can just imagine the next step... vCPU limitations. Think about it.:smileyconfused:

I keep on this thread fairly often, I'm actuallying waiting for companies to feel that VMWare 5 has been out long enough to upgrade their licensing, and a whole new wave of anger when vCenter starts telling them they're overallocated when they spin up a handful of new VMs or tweak their allocations.

But yeah, vRAM limitations kill all of VMWare's features for RAM usage, I can understand if they were using vRAM as RAM allocated by the hypervisor a little more at least.

VidarK · ‎08-30-2011

I thought this one was funny in this sitation we're in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hewedqvSWaI&feature=player_embedded

ClueShell · ‎08-30-2011

That is a 'Tad' different from vTax indeed.

To my surprise linux now includes the Hyper-V drivers.

All