NSX PKS Host License

[KaBalint]

Hi Guys i am so curious about VMware PKS CPU licensing.

The question is if we buy the all the CPU licenses which can cover all our hosts in the clusters where we want to use PKS, are these host can be used for other VMs too, or only for the PKS worker and master nodes (Kubernetes Clusters)?

If it is acceptable to use any other types of VMs on those hosts? Futher more can these VMs use the NSX-T networks with a dedicated T1 router, with some dedicated logical switches?

If you have any license usage guide for it, it would be great to read them

Kind Regards,

Balint

[daphnissov]

No, of course they can be used for other VMs too. PKS doesn't have a monopoly on the hosts you license. Since Enterprise PKS comes with NSX-T, and it's not a specialized build of NSX-T that's purposed for PKS, you can use all of the features of NSX-T on the hosts it can access.

[KaBalint]

Hi daphnissov!

Thanks a lot, it helped me a lot!

Good to hear this!

Kind Regards,

Balint

[mauricioamorim · Accepted solution]

Enterprise PKS is a product that includes NSX-T for its own use. It is not licensed per CPU as NSX-T, being licensed per Core or POD and involves only licensing the PKS workloads, which means Kubernetes Master and Worker Nodes. This does not entitle the use of NSX-T for other workloads, although you are right that it is not a special build and technically it is possible to use it for other VMs.

[KaBalint]

Hi mauricioamorim!

So the core stands for the workload cores not the esxi host cores. i had the idea the cores can be count as esxi host cores that will cover the clustes so if the nsx comes with pks, it may allowed to use other vms on nsx-t. but as you said it is technically possible but not a good a idea and it go against the user license agreement.

[mauricioamorim]

Take a look here: https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/product/vmware-product-guide.pdf

[daphnissov]

I actually did not know this and it has never been pointed out to me.

I find this somewhat unreasonable especially given some of the hardware platforms on which Enterprise PKS must be run. For example, what if a customer is running this on a hyper-converged solution like VxRail? With only two pNICs, you're forced to use a N-VDS for everything, which would then imply that you can't use that hardware to deploy anything else other than PKS cluster workloads effectively isolating it. Even then running VxRail Manager on that same platform would be a violation of the license! Clearly this wasn't well conceived and is pretty ridiculous.