Software licensing based on CPU-ID

[hoschult]

Hello,

some software (applications, middleware etc.) have a licensing model which is based on the host's cpu id. We came in trouble when we do evaluation if that kind of software is able to run with vmware (and for example with vmotion or vmware ha). If the vm lives on another host system the cpu id changes and the software (with was correctly licensed one the other vmware host) isn't running any more.

Reason: CPU-ID changed!!

So my question is:

Is this kind of software not "vmware compatible" or is there a way to fake an cpu-id which is always the same (in case of the underlaying vmware host changes)? Or is vmware able to transport the CPU-ID?

Thanks for your help.

Holger

[Ken_Cline]

First thing I'd do is to go back to the software vendor and tell them that you expect them to provide you with a licensing scheme that will support your enterprise virtualization strategy.

In the meantime, the best you can do is to use CPU affinity to pin the VM to a particular CPU. This will exclude the VM from VMotion and will also cause the vmkernel scheduler to penalize it with CPU scheduling.

Ken Cline

Technical Director, Virtualization

Wells Landers

VMware Communities User Moderator

[sachinutd]

How do I use CPU affinity to pin the VM to a particular CPU on a VMware server?

[asatoran]

Page 126 of the Resource Management Guide .

[larstr]

What kind of software is this? The vendors never tell you that they require this until after you've bought it.

We've seen this issue in the Alchemy Document Management Software[/url] from Captaris. hmm.. Seems they've just addressed[/url] this issue.

Lars

[sachinutd]

It is just a license model for virtual platforms. So it becomes easy for the user to buy a license per physical machine rather than virtual machine.

Thanks,

Sachin

[larstr]

Sachin,

I'm not sure I'm following you here. What do you mean by "just a license model for virtual platforms"? The fix in the Captaris software?

Lars

[sachinutd]

Sorry! I was referring to what Holger mentioned:

"some software (applications, middleware etc.) have a licensing model which..."

So this issue is with all softwares using this licensing model. Captaris Software may have fixed the bug but other softwares need to address the issue.