Is the Management Cluster subject to VSPP licensing?

[DB4E]

We are building a multi-tenanted hosting environment with a view to expanding it to a public cloud offering for SMEs.

As per VMware best practice we have separated the "Management Cluster" from the "Resource Cluster" so that management of the environment has no affect on the resources made available to customers.

Management VMs are used to manage and monitor the Resource Cluster and include VMs that perform tasks such as automated call logging, remote access, DC functions, a SQL server, VCOPS, VCUM and a number of other management machines.

VMs in the Resource Cluster are purely for customer consumption and therefore fall under the VSPP licensing scheme.

Are the servers in the Management Cluster (which are only accessed by our internal staff) subject to VSPP licensing or are these able to be run on perpetual licenses?

[IamTHEvilONE]

DB4E,

This question is probably more for the people that run the VSPP Program, and this forum specifically is about the use and support of vCloud Usage Meter.

I'm pretty sure that the VSPP guide should have some form of contact for you to reach out to.

Best Regards,

Jon Hemming

[admin]

Please refer to the VMware Service Provider Program (VSPP) Guide Q1 2012 page 16 of 32 for more details on what management components can be rolled in for internal use.  You may also need the VSPP level to map the correct benefits.

[DB4E]

Understood Jon,

Being that we (and everyone else visiting this forum) use Usage Meter to report on our VSPP usage and it has an option for perpetual licenses in 2.3 and the ability to report on individual clients I wanted to find out from others using the program how they have split out their management cluster licensing under Usage Meter.

[DB4E]

Thanks dbaldwin,

The latest VSPP Program Guide V3.2 Updated April 2011 states that IUL's are not allowed to be used for the management cluster or supporting services and I'm ok with that.

What I need to know is whether the management cluster is allowed to be licensed as perpetual (fully paid) licenses with SNS or whether VMs managing the production resource cluster need to be reported on as a customer of the environment under VSPP.

Thanks