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MattG
Expert
Expert

vSphere Enterprise Plus position? Enterprise to be discontinued on 12/15/09?

There are only a handlful of features that are exclsuive to Enterprise Plus licenses:

  • Centralized virtual network management. Simplify provisioning and administration of virtual networking
    through a centralized interface. Create and manage a single distributed switch with distributed virtual port groups
    than span a Datacenter wide array of ESX/ESXi hosts.

  • Support for Private VLANs

  • Network VMotion.

  • Bidirectional Network Traffic Shaper.

  • Third Party Distributed Virtual Switches.

  • vStorage APIs for Multipathing.

  • 8-way Virtual SMP™.

Centralized virtual network management seems to the one that stands out the most as I thought this would be a Enterprise feature.

I am pleasantly surprised that FT is in every product except for Standard. I thought that this feature would be an add-on above Enterprise.

I am guessing this license is geared towards large environments that have been clamoring for enhanced Storage and Network management features. But does it really warrant a new license type?

-MattG

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jguidroz
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

I don't quite understand this as well. In terms of features, Advanced is only missing Svmotion and DRS. You would think with being able to support 12 cores, you would want DRS to help with resources.

One other thing I've noticed, there is no upgrade path from Standard or Advanced to Enterprise. It is only to Enterprise Plus.

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hicksj
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

It gives the folks that have "standalone" ESX servers the option to scale up, rather than have to scale out - at a much lower price point. I think this applies to very much a minority of implementations, but they are definitely attempting to better service the SMB market in the vSphere release.

We have one location where we have a standalone host. No plans to add redundant hardware / SAN / etc. However, if I needed to run MANY more systems than I already have there, I could replace with a 12 core/cpu box, keeping the install footprint to one host - and NOT have to pay for DRS / Storage VMotion / etc.

I think you could look at these licensing terms and also get a picture of what their partners are planning, CPU-wise, down the road. They have the 6-core Xeon 7000's right now. Perhaps Intel will couple two of those together on the same die for 12-core CPU's when they drop their fabs from 45nm to 32nm? AMD has previously announced 12 core Opterons. For single host shops (think "mainframe"), Advanced sounds pretty appealing!!!

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Smoggy
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

well if you take a look at the "Cores" row in this table now by the magic of world wide web'ery managed to get this changed to state "Cores Per Processor" so hopefully that is a better name for that row?

cheers

Lee Dilworth

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sradnidge
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Enterprise Plus is an absolute joke. My thoughts on it are here.

It's not the fact that VMware want to charge more money for more cores per socket. It's the fact that they have slotted in this layer above the current top tier, and are expecting existing top tier customers to cough up for it. VMware just announced ~$250mil of licensing revenue in the first quarter of this year. What portion of that was Enterprise licenses I don't know, but those people will rightly be mad as hell.

And vendors wonder why enterprises implement "dual vendor" strategies. Vendors wonder why enterprises actually don't get that stoked about a VMware/EMC/Cisco alliance. This is exactly the reason why. Lock yourself in, and they end up putting you over a barrel instead of rewarding you for years of faithful custom. I personally have dedicated a lot of time over the past 8 months by way of testing and providing feedback on various parts of the vSphere 4 stack. Conference calls, webinars, surveys, bug reports, direct liason with product managers and developers, etc etc. The reason I could do that was because my employer saw it as a worthwhile endeavour and allowed a certain percentage of my time to do this rather than work on other projects. My employer made an investment in ensuring VMware would deliver the best possible product with vSphere 4. And this is the reward?

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MattG
Expert
Expert

A bit over-dramatic are we? Is the new Plus Tier really something that would make companies a) not upgrade to vSphere or b) abandon VMware? Are we really being put "over the barrell"?

Anger is never a good decision maker.

I was acutally surprised that FT, vOrchestrator, and Data Recovery were included in Enterprise. According to the VMTN Podcast yesterday, VMware wanted to get rid of the unpopular ala-carte licensing and thats why they pushed most apps into the standard packages and created a higher tier for more features that larger Enterprises would want.

And while there is a cost to Plus it is "only" $295 per CPU. If your company can't tolerate that unpected cost this year, you could always budget it for next?

-MattG

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JDLangdon
Expert
Expert

Enterprise Plus is an absolute joke. My thoughts on it are here.

Do you need the additional features of Enterprise+ that bad that it's worth getting upset over?

________________________________

Jason D. Langdon

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sradnidge
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Matt, Jason, you guys are missing my point.

I'll state it again - I do NOT have any issues with VMware wanting to charge more as core density increase. I am sure many software vendors will take this route.

I only know the enterprise space. I'm talking companies with 50K employees or more - as I've said many times on my blog, this is the only world I know. If you don't know that world, you can't possibly comment on the validity of my concerns. Based on your comments, I would suggest you don't know this world - (1) we don't do single year deals in this world and (2) we need 8 vCPU and will have >6 core per socket in our labs in a few months and in the production environment within a year. I'm not being arrogant about this - I have never worked in small/medium comapnies, so if you say it's not a big deal for you then I can only take your word for it.

So please be clear on this. My perspective is large corporate, my gripe is twofold:

1) The treatment of existing top tier licensees. It's a thing called principle, it's nothing to do with money. $295 is the retail price for the upgrade, enterprises don't pay anywhere near that. Even if I paid $100 extra per socket, right now that would equate to around $200K USD in my environment. Which is of course insignificant in comparison to what an average ELA deal is worth. But when you sign a multiyear deal, you cannot possibly forsee the future, and thus there is an understanding of fairness involved. We are paying for the top tier of what VMware has to offer, and regardless of what happens during the course of that deal, there's an understanding that we'll always be on the top tier. VMware obviously doesn't take this view.

2) The features included in Enterprise Plus. I too am surprised at the inclusion of stuff like vShield and FT in plain Enterprise. But clearly VMware know that the demand for these features in the enterprise pales in comparison to the demand for 8vCPU, hardware with more than >6 cores per socket, distributed vswitch and host profiles (in the enterprise - again, I imagine these features might be of little significance to smaller companies). As I said in my blog post, what is going to happen 12-18 months from now when we cant't buy less than 8 cores per socket? The "Enterprise" license will not be relevant to anyone anymore, but Enterprise Plus will be? Enterprise Plus, but no Enterprise to "plus" on top of? WTF?

Anyways I'll stop ranting. I speak to my peers in the industry I work in, their opinions are the same. VMware could've just flicked existing top tier licensees onto the new top tier and increased the cost when the contract renewal came around, and it wouldnt have been an issue. But trying to squeeze more cash out of big business in this market in such a cynical way (ie by putting features like 8 vCPU and >6 cores per socket into Enterprise Plus) will not do them any favours.

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MattG
Expert
Expert

8-core options will not be available until Q1 2010. So for this year the 6-core limitation will not be an issue.

The thing to remember is that 6-core limit is for GA in 2009. It doesn't mean they won't modify those numbers upward. Just as they do now when a larger core architecture comes out, they update their licensing to support it. With AMD and Intel looking to drastically up the core ante over the next couple of years, this may be a way to differentiate the product for whatever the bleeding edge core count is at that time. So whose to say when the 8-cores are released in Q1 2010 that Enterprise licensing won't be upgraded to handle them?

That being said this is no consolation for planning architecture as you can't plan budgets on the unknown.

I know it will force me to upgrade to Plus as the best ROI is the largest CPU core count and memory that I can pack in a server due to VM and MS DataCenter licensing being socket based.

If you want to see uproar, wait until VM or MS (DC) try to license based on cores. With the drastic increase in core counts, they would have to consider this as you will be able to do more virtualization with less software, which affects their bottom line.

-MattG

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sradnidge
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hmm I think my initial reply went into the ether...

Anyways yeh, it depends on what CPU vendor you use I guess. Intel are certainly planning 8 core Nehalem-EX chips in 2009, and AMD are looking to offer 12 cores in 2010. One can only hope VMware will change their tune on this, but I won't be holding my breath Smiley Happy

Stu

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malaysiavm
Expert
Expert

6 cores limit per cpu socket and without 8 virtual smp support in enteprise version is the killing point. many customers like us get pissed and if you do not upgrade to plus, you will end up still stuck with 4 virtual smp and not able to use more virtual smp in single vm if needed. competitor from vmware is already offering up to 8vsmp for quite some times. I dun think this is enhancement for vsphere when you only provide it which force your existing customer who sign up the SNS to pay more bucks today. turn the happy customer to unhappy mostly.

Craig

vExpert 2009

Malaysia VMware Communities -

Craig vExpert 2009 & 2010 Netapp NCIE, NCDA 8.0.1 Malaysia VMware Communities - http://www.malaysiavm.com
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malaysiavm
Expert
Expert

we are quite the same over here and I can understand your situation. for the same industry users and most of us are feeling the same. you will end up spending a lot of time to speak to you senior executive to get the money for an UPGRADE which may cause you some big bucks. vmware should revise this asap before it become a big mess for big corporate users.

Craig

vExpert 2009

Malaysia VMware Communities -

Craig vExpert 2009 & 2010 Netapp NCIE, NCDA 8.0.1 Malaysia VMware Communities - http://www.malaysiavm.com
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shaofis
Contributor
Contributor

The costs to "upgrade" to me were a little unfortunate.

Honestly I had no expectation that they would spawn new licensing programs and force people to upgrade. I was honestly looking forward to a few of the new features such as the virtual switch that have been marketed and demonstrated at VMWorld/etc. Now I'll have to take a look and see if a company my size really needs those additional features.

It makes you take a step back and look at what benefits Upgrade Rights really mean. Sure this is only a small portion of our maintenance fees... but what is to stop them from adding a plus plus next time around and repeating the same process?

To make matters worse the special pricing seems to be targeted to really make the decision difficult. Why in the world would you have special pricing up until December 15th, extend that special pricing into 2010 and let us budget for this new upgrade fee without being penalized.

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MattG
Expert
Expert

I hope this is not the case but the linked PDF states:

VMware vSphere

Enterprise Edition

(Available until 12/15/09 only)

http://www.boche.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/VsphereData.pdf

So is Enterprise not going to be offered after 12/15, only Plus?

-MattG

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shaofis
Contributor
Contributor

The sale price is only valid until then... it is still an option after... but at something like near twice the price.

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jguidroz
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

That is the first I've seen that document. The discounted upgrade from Enterprise to Enterprise plus ends on 12/15. Also, there is no upgrade path from Standard or Advanced to Enterprise, just Enterprise Plus.

I don't see why they would even sell Enterprise if they are going to discontinue it at the end of the year (if that document is correct).

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MattG
Expert
Expert

Further down in the doc it states:

(Note: Enterprise edition will be discontinued after 12/15/2009)

I know the upgrade price is valid to 12/15/09. This is stating that Enterprise will be discontinued on the same date.

-MattG

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jasoncllsystems
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Bear in mind, VMware competitors always talked, criticized and compared VMware licensing costs.

And yet we're still keep waiting for a good news from VMware

Regards,

CLL SYSTEMS http://www.cllsystems.com

MALAYSIA VMWARE COMMUNITIES http://www.malaysiavm.com

http://www.malaysiavm.com
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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

That argument holds water if you ignore one major and significant point, VI3 does not have any core limit what so ever.

If you found this or any other answer useful please consider the use of the Helpful or correct buttons to award points

Tom Howarth VCP / vExpert

VMware Communities User Moderator

Blog: www.planetvm.net

Contributing author for the upcoming book "VMware Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment”.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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sradnidge
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yeh, this is shocking. Cynical, cynical move... I would expect it from the likes of Microsoft but not VMware. Maish has a great post on it here http://technodrone.blogspot.com/2009/04/will-we-be-forced-to-pay-more-pt-2.html. I just can't believe that after December 15th there will be an "Enterprise Plus", but no Enterprise. I guess it speaks to the stupidity of whoever came up with this scheme. You can't add something to null.

VMware's blatant grab for cash will only result in lost licensing revenue as their largest customers move to dual vendor strategies because of this. The revenue loss will not only be in their core market, but all the additional management apps they are planning to offer this year as well. In moving to multiple virtualisation platforms, you want to ensure that the higher level tools used for billing, capacity planning etc etc are cross platfrom - since none of VMware's products are, I can't imagine them being favoured over cross platform tools, either built in house or provided by ISV's.

As I said in other comments and on my blog, it's not the raising of prices that is messed up - it's this business of slotting in a new top tier above the current one and requiring current Enterprise licensee's to pay an 'upgrade' fee. Short term revenue gain, maybe. Immediate souring of relationship with large customers leading to longer term revenue loss, absolutely.

Stu

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benma
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Jasemccarty wrote:

Yeah, that's kind of a slap in the face.

Yep, thats what it is.

I'm working for a large enprise with a lot of Hosts. We are paying a lot for the Enterprise SnS.

Since 3.0 we didn't open one support ticket. 295 USD / CPU is a lot and if your boss don't

give you the money until the end of the year you have to pay 685 USD / CPU.

30 Host -> 60 CPU's * 295 = 17700 USD

30 Host -> 60 CPU's * 685 = 41100 USD

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