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

[MattG]

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

[Jasemccarty]

Don't forget the limit on physical host memory is more than 256GB in EntPlus.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center

(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach

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[MattG]

Which is a big deal if you are doing UCS.

-MattG

[depping]

vStorage APIs for Multipathing alone would be worth it in my opinion.

Duncan

VMware Communities User Moderator

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[admin]

Could you give us a bit more info on what the vStorage APIs for multipathing are for Duncan?

www.phdvirtual.com

[dougjef]

For EMC customers it could mean native Powerpath...which would be huge..

[kimono]

Not too pleased on this "Plus" concept ... if what I'm hearing is true it will be another upgrade cost for existing enterprise customers...

/kimono/

[jguidroz]

I don't like the additional cost either, but I was sort of figuring this would occur. But, VMware is going to allow you upgrade to Enterprise+ for $295 per processor through the end of the year. After that, it's going to be around $685 per processor.

Now, I'm not all disappointed because I figured Data Recovery would be a separate purchase. This is included with Enterprise. But features such as Host Profiles, DVS, etc. that I was planned on using, well now I need to go talk to my management to look for money to upgrade this year.

[Jasemccarty]

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

With 48 procs, at the upgrade price, that's $14,400 USD, or more than double that if waiting until next year. Who has the money for that these days?

The biggest gripe, is that Advanced (below Enterprise) has 12 core support, while Enterprise has 6 core support. What gives with that?

We'll just have to be happy with the Enterprise package...

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center

(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach

_{Please consider awarding points if this post was helpful or correct}

[hicksj]

Agreed. We already pay (fairly pricey^) SnS on Enterprise Edition to keep it up to date. While I'm sure VMware's support arm is costly, I have to believe that most of our SnS money really supplements the development of the next version (because I know we're not getting anywhere near that money back in SR resolutions!). As part of your and my investement in that development, should we not be entitled to the advanced features?

^That said, I have involovement in many areas around and outside our Data Center operations. The maintenance fees we pay for other products, compared to VMware, are completely outrageous. Our investment in VMware has been returned several fold in reduced acquisition costs, streamlined operations, etc. When you think about that, its hard to complain too loudly.

[jguidroz]

I do agree we pay a good bit for VMware support, but like you said, compared to other products, it's a steal. And up until recently, I rarely used support. I believe I've had three or four support calls in the last few weeks just on Update Manager or Esxupdate alone. If we're paying for it, might as well use it, right?

[kimono]

Yeah don't get me wrong, I have a soft spot for Vmware ... and from my point of view the deal we have was a steal too - however try telling that to my boss who just forked out for it!

/kimono/

[jguidroz]

I know the feeling. With all the latest budget cuts, I just sent off an email explaining that I want to spend money and how much it will increase our support costs.

[kimono]

yes yes, and the old-school business case of "look how much we're saving by not buying so many physical servers" just doesn't apply any more. That argument went out as soon as VMware taught executives what virtualization was.... now it's a trivial commodity ..

/kimono/

[azn2kew]

Same issue here, throwing some numbers on new licensing its a shocked to management, but in returns the features themselves will enhance and help streamline your virtualization environment and provide great value to your customers. If its reliable and does the job as promoted, they wouldn't be stingy with the price for promoting new features that they need. I don't think large enterprises like financial, bankers etc...have issues with this licensing as long as they systems is 99.999% up since downtime causes them millions in penalties so you know the value of technologies as we all know.

For SMB, that would be a slap in a face as mentioned, its hard to have this folks implemented VMware project already, and now asking for more on licensing, luckily not all SMB requires to have these add-ons features. Data Recovery would help a lot but not FT in this case. Again, I'm very curious why Advance feature support 12 cores but Enterprise only 6 cores so why the difference?

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Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

VMware vExpert 2009

iGeek Systems Inc.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[admin]

We looking at this page right?

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

So if Enterprise only supports 6 Process Cores, does that mean in total in the host? If so that really sucks, almost all of the hosts Ive managed in the past have been dual quad-core systems running VI3 Enterprise....so does this they'll only be allowed to use 6 of 8 cores if they are upgraded to vSphere?

Alex

www.phdvirtual.com

[MattG]

No. I am pretty sure that is per socket.

The other thing that I have thought of, it as more cores are added to new CPUs VMware may update the Enterprise vs Enterprise Plus diagram. Because if you think about it, they can't charge a premium on new 8-core CPUs when they become the defacto standard. They would need to change Enterprise to the defacto standard and update Enterprise Plus to reflect the bleeding edge. We will see.

-MattG

[admin]

Ah if it's 6-cores per socket then that's fine, going to be a while before 8-core procs become widely used.

Alex

www.phdvirtual.com

[Smoggy]

this is correct.

on the comparison page http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

the processor core counts are PER socket.

I will see if we can change that table to make it clearer.

best regards,

Lee Dilworth

[admin]

Lee,

Do you know why the Advanced version gets 12-cores per socket and Enterprise gets 6?

Alex

www.phdvirtual.com