Matt lets look at this rationally shall we, VI3 - no core limit and two CPU costs. vSphere - Core limits and single CPU costs. This is a similar way to when the UK changed from Charging Petrol in Gallons to litres. at the time the cost of a Gallon was approx £2.00 this equated to about 40 pence per litre. great that was cool, however preivously Tax was added at 1 or 2 pence per gallon. now it is added at 1 or 2 pence per litre. This equates to 5 to 10 pence per gallon. and Oil Companies raised prices in 1 to 2 pence increments, they still raise by 1 to 2 pence increments. so suddenly you Small price increase if $50 per license is suddenly $100 per equlivilant. the message here is "Do Not Believe the Hype"
FT although a very interesting and techical feature, in its self is not that useful, as it is not single CPU, How many mission critical servers do you have that only have a single CPU??? (Again Great Hype - come back when it can handle SMP). The real jewels were DVS and Hosted profiles and guest what we have to do to get those. Not to forget the extra $1000 or so for a Nexus1000v license per host.
I actually agree with Stu here, (amazing I know but stanger things have happened at Sea), and before you say anything here I also had this rant at the release of VMWare View 3. VMware have really missed the march here. to effectively increase licensing costs during a time of;
a: increased compitition from Microsoft,
b: during a time of decreased budgets,
to me beggers belief, there is no logical reason other than greed to introduce another level of licencing. MS are creeping, "Live Migration will be free" they should have gave that away in standard, it would still have needed a vCenter license.
in fact the ability to even purchase vMotion as an addon as gone and is not available until Advanced now.
Futher why as an Enterprise customer (note ENTERPRISE customer am I now limited to 6 cores (six cores just happen to be the largest i386 based processor size available at the moment)). I am effectively forced on to a license upgrade. if I or my customers wish to upgrade hardware to newer 8 or greater cored machines I have to "Purchase" the Enterprise Plus license - yes is is only $295 per processor. but what everybody seems to forget that is only until the end of December. when the price for upgrade suddenly becomes $695 per processor.
Also do not forget the Memory limitation as well, you do not get Unlimited memory support until Ent + either. this is another "issue" that will not kick in for a couple of years.
I Could go on but this will be the subject of a blog post. the launch was a Marketing Coup, on in the cold light of day, I am starting to feel a sour taste in my mouth.
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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
