Left looking at alternatives

[AsherN]

I'm stuck. I'm a former ESX user. I was just about ready to present my recommendation to management to implement a VMware environment in my 2 sites. HA, SRM and all that.

Now comes the half-assed announcement of vSphere. SRM doesn't work, there is no HCL. I can't be spending money on hardware that may not workwith vSphere, let alone the new SRM. I was looking at 2 couple of licenses of Essential Plus, but there is no upgrade path, and what would those licenses translate to if I wanted to run ESX 3.5 instead?

For the first tim, I'm seriously looking at both Citrix and MS. They may not be quite as good, but at least I know what I'm getting.

I've been in the business long enough to remember Novell. Technical prowess is not enough. Look at the complaints on the upgrade debacles threads. ESX is a great product, but it is not cheap, If they are not carefull, the competion wil catch up. MS is years away, but Citrix is much closer. They may not have an automated tool like SRM yet, but if all I have to do is a bunch of manual metadata restores to recover my VMs, I think I can afford the hour of downtime.

My feeling is that VMware takes care of the really small install with ESXi, and can play with the larger boys who can dish out $5K for a management server and a bunch of other tools to recover large datacentres. They are leaving medium size businesses ripe to be gobbled up by the competition.

[wila]

I'm stuck. I'm a former ESX user. I was just about ready to present my recommendation to management to implement a VMware environment in my 2 sites. HA, SRM and all that.

Now comes the half-assed announcement of vSphere. SRM doesn't work, there is no HCL. I can't be spending money on hardware that may not workwith vSphere, let alone the new SRM. I was looking at 2 couple of licenses of Essential Plus, but there is no upgrade path

Yes, it is one of the things i do not understand at all in the new licensing.. why is there no upgrade possible from Essential Plus to Standard? What is the logic behind that?

You can also not buy more features, Essential plus is end-of-the-Line.

For the first tim, I'm seriously looking at both Citrix and MS. They may not be quite as good, but at least I know what I'm getting.

C-Level executives don't care too much about all the features we techies want to have. They see price and have a "good enough" attitude. I don't want to become a Hyper-V or Xen advising virtualisation consultant, but you have to be able to give a decent solution to customers and within the current economic climate, these products are now suddenly becoming viable alternatives

--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

Visit the VMware developers wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

[Smoggy]

Hi

sorry to hear about your views on the license model. rest assured, although this is not my area, I'm techie, I have made the relevant internal teams aware of these posts.

I will answer as best I can for now.

For the vSphere beta the HCL is basically all systems (64-bit sockets only) that are on the 3.5 HCL with little or no exceptions. The new vSphere guides will be online in the next few weeks. Can you outline your prospective kit list? I can then review and let you know, via private email if needed, how that list fits with the vSphere HCL I have access to internally.

Currently there is no VI3 downgrade path for the "essentials" packages. I have raised this with the relevant team. Did you look at using the standard edition? vSphere standard edition DOES have a VI3 downgrade equivalent so if the need is urgent you could go VI3+SRM then upgrade when SRM for vSphere is out. Appreciate that might not be an attractive solution but it will be affected by timelines for go live.

On the SRM front we will commence beta testing the next update release of SRM in the next couple of months. This release will bring with it quite a few new features to the table one of which will be vSphere support.

sorry I could not offer a decisive answer as you may have liked but feel free to send me a PM if there is any more info you have that might help that may not be suitable for public posting.

best regards,

Lee Dilworth

[weinstein5]

I am sorry you are having this angst over the release of vsphere - yes vsphere is announced with the release of the core products - vcenter, esx/esxi, converter, VUM with higher level products like SRM, Lab Manager and view to follow - that is just the nature of development - resource were focused on the core products now as we near GA release they will be refocused for those other rproducts.

In regards to the HCL we are working with our hardware partners to qualify their equipment - if you have a vendor of choice you should be able to get from them the equipment that they are qualifying-

Even though VMware is better than most with their .0 releases I am always hesistant to bring it in as the first exposure to the technology - I would recommend implementing VI-3 with SRM - it works it is proven and is mature - buy it with SnS so that when SRM for vSphere comes out you will be able to migrate to the new version -

If you find this or any other answer useful please consider awarding points by marking the answer correct or helpful

[AsherN]

Lee,

I appreciate your answer. I'm looking at IBM 3550 or Dell 2950 with 5400 CPUs and EMC AX4-5F SANs.

The edition version will get sorted out once management decides if SRM is an immediate or Q1 2010 implementation.

Of more concern regarding the edition is the dead end that Essential presents. I have to try to peer far enough in the future to decide if I'll go beyond 3 servers. I've been in IT long enough to not try to play that game.

As a personal opinion, I think there is an opportunity lost here. You have an aggressivaly priced offering to catch the small organization. There needs to be a way to then be able to grow.

[glynnd1]

AsherN, is there a particular reason you are looking at older CPUs, why the 5400 rather then the recently released 5500?

My understanding is that the servers with the newer CPUs can host a much greater workload - check the VMmark results.

[Kallex]

Hi!

Also to point out, there is currently licensing DEAD END on the Foundation Acceleration Pack. It's good package for VI 3.5 base for SMB, but less features, more expensive than Essential Plus and NO downgrade pack (even if you can suck up the paid "more" thing). That is if you order now or just ordered.

The DEAD END thing is the "can't upgrade from Essential Plus", but the other side, and just as bad or even worse.

Thing is the Foundation Accel Kit had maintenance for around $600, the initial price was around $3700, it included 3x VI Foundation and vCenter Foundation... now that gets converted to 6x vSphere Standard (CPU count equivalent) and vCenter Foundation. Features lack the Essential Plus.

Here's the killer though, now the subscpriont and support cost raise to almost $2000 per year.

So I suggest while taking the issue back to the licensing, check back how the SMB current / new customers that made the purchase prior to essentials and/or need the VI 3.5 for addition pack features (such as VDI and 3rd party tools - as there is no Essential downgrade path to run earlier version).

Br,

Kalle

[AsherN]

glynnd1 wrote:AsherN, is there a particular reason you are looking at older CPUs, why the 5400 rather then the recently released 5500?

My understanding is that the servers with the newer CPUs can host a much greater workload - check the VMmark results.

Cost, and required capacity. I'm virtualizing 8 servers on 2 hosts with 16GB RAM and likely running a single E5440 each. Most of my current servers are at least 4 years old. The fastest one of that bunch runs a blazing single core Xeon 2.4. I could virtualize all of those in a just one of my hosts. AAMOF, I just ran the MS capacity tool on my servers, and according to it, I could get away with a single dual core runing at 2.4GHz.

[AsherN]

I haven't licensed anything yet. I was originally looking at the Standard Acc Pack because I want the HA feature. Essential Plus is really all I need right now. But the dead ending of it is really annoying. In these times, it's hard to justify spending extra money 'just in case'. But I'd have a hard time going back next year to re-license everything if I add a host. There absolutely needs to be an upgrade path from Essential to Standard.

[glynnd1]

Ah in that case it makes some sense.

Good luck with your project.

[JDLangdon]

I appreciate your answer. I'm looking at IBM 3550 or Dell 2950 with 5400 CPUs and EMC AX4-5F SANs.

Any reason why you are not looking at the IBM M2 series? These boxes are designed with VMware ESX in mind.

________________________________

Jason D. Langdon

[AsherN]

Again, cost. R=They are more expensive than the plain 3550.

[SunnyC]

If you ever wanted more information on our System x3550, feel free to contact me.