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Big VMware Announcement!

Child of Wonder said:
Thanks for the link. That means the client I mentioned will only be able to allocate 64GB of their RAM per host if they go straight to vSphere 5 Enterprise.

The other alternative is to buy an additional 16 vSphere 5 Enterprise licenses (4 blades with 2 CPUs and 192GB RAM each) or replace their Enterprise licenses with 16 Enterprise Plus licenses.

Either way, they'll need to pay tens of thousands of dollars if they want to go to vSphere 5 and be able to allocate all the RAM they bought.
Click to expand...

It sounds awesome that you would have to pay for deduplicated memory. I bet quite a few more VMs can be allocated in the space of RAM they've purchased there... yet they probably have to pay for enough vRAM to grow. Haha.. that seems so goofy to have to pay for more vRAM than you have physical RAM... some big-ups are not going to understand that one. Frankly neither do I? I dunno if saying they need 16 vSphere 5 licenses is right... I mean perhaps it is just a key that decodes how much vRAM for this edition you're granted overall? It will be interesting to see how it is handled. I also wonder, can you license enterprise plus for these VMs over here and enterprise for these few over here when managed by the same vCenter server?? I can't imagine so.
 
NetJunkie said:
It's going to push a lot of people to look very hard at how they provision VMs and tools to monitor them will become very popular, very fast. Most of my customers over provision VMs, especially memory. I think we'll see that trend change.
Click to expand...

This. And actually, it's separate of socket - a 48GB license will work on as many hosts as you could possibly have, up to 48GB of memory provisioned. That means no more limitations on how many hosts you can have for dividing up workload, only VM provisioning (similar to per-VM licensing, but more tied to resources in use).

EG: 1x host with 48gb of ram, or many hosts for HA failover loads and FT with each having 12GB of ram or the like.

Or so I've been told by the sales folk. Still validating.
 
Child of Wonder said:
Thanks for the link. That means the client I mentioned will only be able to allocate 64GB of their RAM per host if they go straight to vSphere 5 Enterprise.

The other alternative is to buy an additional 16 vSphere 5 Enterprise licenses (4 blades with 2 CPUs and 192GB RAM each) or replace their Enterprise licenses with 16 Enterprise Plus licenses.

Either way, they'll need to pay tens of thousands of dollars if they want to go to vSphere 5 and be able to allocate all the RAM they bought.
Click to expand...

It's supposed to be separate from "per host" - it's simply 48gb per license, regardless of host.
 
lopoetve said:
It's supposed to be separate from "per host" - it's simply 48gb per license, regardless of host.
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Yeah, it goes into a pool it sounds like. Is that pool done by datacenter, vcenter server, cluster or something else?

Still sucks if you have top of the line Enterprise Plus licensing with a bunch of DL380 G7s with 120 GB in each of them, you now have to buy more licenses to upgrade...
 
lopoetve said:
It's supposed to be separate from "per host" - it's simply 48gb per license, regardless of host.
Click to expand...

I know. In the example of my client, they have 4 hosts, each with 2 CPU and 192GB of RAM. Since they currently have 8x Enterprise licenses, if they move to vSphere 5 they'll only be able to allocate 256GB of vRAM to their VMs even though they have 768GB of physical RAM. If they want to allocate more vRAM, they'll need to buy more licenses.

That's not going to sit well with customers.
 
ND40oz said:
Yeah, it goes into a pool it sounds like. Is that pool done by datacenter, vcenter server, cluster or something else?

Still sucks if you have top of the line Enterprise Plus licensing with a bunch of DL380 G7s with 120 GB in each of them, you now have to buy more licenses to upgrade...
Click to expand...

not if you're not using all that ram right now. You can easily avoid overprovisioning a single host by buying multiple if needed - keeps you from having contention for resources, as it's totally untied from the physical hardware. That being said, if you ARE using all that ram...

edit: I believe it's by VC server.
 
Child of Wonder said:
I know. In the example of my client, they have 4 hosts, each with 2 CPU and 192GB of RAM. Since they currently have 8x Enterprise licenses, if they move to vSphere 5 they'll only be able to allocate 256GB of vRAM to their VMs even though they have 768GB of physical RAM. If they want to allocate more vRAM, they'll need to buy more licenses.

That's not going to sit well with customers.
Click to expand...

Are they using all 768GB of ram currently? If not, they won't have to.
 
lopoetve said:
Are they using all 768GB of ram currently? If not, they won't have to.
Click to expand...

I would imagine if they puchased that much RAM in those blades then they would probably at least be using more that the 256GB they would currently be licensed for if they upgraded to vSphere 5. You are looking that them only being able to use 1/3 of their total memory available. It is going to be very hard to go back to management and tell them that you need more licensing to utilize the hardware that they currently have when their current vSphere 4 licensing allows them to utilize all of it.

Edit:

They would need to purchase 16 more Enterprise licenses in order to utilize all of their hardware. If they upgraded to Enterprise Plus they would still need to purchase 4 licenses per server. Maybe what they should do is not tie the licensing to sockets but rather to memory or something else entirely.
 
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lopoetve said:
Are they using all 768GB of ram currently? If not, they won't have to.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but that really isn't the point. The customer had something, now they don't. If they wanted to do it on vSphere 4 they could with the licensing they have. Now, with the same hardware and everything being equal, they can't. THAT is the issue. You just try and explain that to the powers that be most places, they aren't going to understand. When they have to look at spending money that gives opportunity for reevaulation of what long term plans are.

I agree with CoW, this appears to be the second time in my opinion VMware needlessly tried to get more money from existing customers.

To answer your question though... what if they were using all of that 768.. hell what if with TPS they were using way over that amount? Is that right at all, having to pay for deduplicated vRAM?
 
defuseme2k said:
Yeah, but that really isn't the point. The customer had something, now they don't. If they wanted to do it on vSphere 4 they could with the licensing they have. Now, with the same hardware and everything being equal, they can't. THAT is the issue. You just try and explain that to the powers that be most places, they aren't going to understand. When they have to look at spending money that gives opportunity for reevaulation of what long term plans are.

I agree with CoW, this appears to be the second time in my opinion VMware needlessly tried to get more money from existing customers.

To answer your question though... what if they were using all of that 768.. hell what if with TPS they were using way over that amount? Is that right at all, having to pay for deduplicated vRAM?
Click to expand...

Exactly. That's my point. I sold my client 768GB of RAM with the full expectation that they can use up to (or more with TPS, ballooning, compression, etc.) the full 768GB.

Now, if they want to upgrade to vSphere 5, they'll need to purchase several more licenses. to full utilize that hardware.

Say a customer is running a virtual vCenter server with 8GB of RAM. Assuming they can get an Enterprise Plus license with 3 years support for 40% off list, that 8GB of RAM you give vCenter is costing you $600 in licensing.
 
well there go my plans to buy Essentials Plus, 48GB per host is not good enough. This is crap, I may have to change hypervisors. I am really disappointed with vmware, they just lost my $4K.
 
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shiznit said:
well there go my plans to buy Essentials Plus, 48GB per host is not good enough. This is crap, I may have to change hypervisors. I am really disappointed with vmware, they just lost my $4K.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they tend to do this, having been under continuous licensing since ESX 2.5 and getting shafted with new licensing changes on pretty much every major release, I expected nothing less.

In the past they added new features and you had to upgrade your licenses to get these new features even though you had the current top of the line, this time, they're just making you buy more licenses for the hardware you already own.
 
So... on a related note, how does this affect someone who was planning on taking the VCP 4.1 test in the next month or 2? I already took the certified training and have a "voucher" but planned on spending some time reading up and studying the "blueprint"...
 
farscapesg1 said:
So... on a related note, how does this affect someone who was planning on taking the VCP 4.1 test in the next month or 2? I already took the certified training and have a "voucher" but planned on spending some time reading up and studying the "blueprint"...
Click to expand...

You'll still be a VCP 4. You will need to take the VCP5 test to upgrade and you will have a grace period (if history remains true) where that will be allowed without being forced into paying for yet another training course. I know VCP 3s that are stuck with that VCP level because VMware requires the "whats new" class in order to upgrade.

Just take the VCP 5 within the required grace period.
 
defuseme2k said:
You'll still be a VCP 4. You will need to take the VCP5 test to upgrade and you will have a grace period (if history remains true) where that will be allowed without being forced into paying for yet another training course. I know VCP 3s that are stuck with that VCP level because VMware requires the "whats new" class in order to upgrade.

Just take the VCP 5 within the required grace period.
Click to expand...

That depends. His voucher may only cover 24 correct answers on the VCP exam since, historically, that's the typical number of questions exam takers get right.

He may need a second voucher or a voucher "plus" if he wants to pass.
 
Interesting points. Some things I hadn't thought of (for me, hosts are the constraint more than ram, and many of my customers too), because I'm very tight on how I provision memory and because of what I'm limited to, but you all do have some good points.
 
If you are a VCP4 you have until 2/29/12 to upgrade with no course requirement. I'd just take the VCP5 directly.
 
NetJunkie said:
You can't actually buy 5 yet. So yes, you can still get it.
Click to expand...
how long do you think I will be able to buy it and if so, what happens if down the road I need to upgrade to a newer version and my hosts have more than 48GB ram provisioned? I have to buy Standard license per socket + vCenter?
 
I am curious to see the actual pricing for the licensing. I wonder if they lowered the cost of the licensing to compensate some for the licensing constraints.
 
NetJunkie said:
If you are a VCP4 you have until 2/29/12 to upgrade with no course requirement. I'd just take the VCP5 directly.
Click to expand...

2/29/12 huh... that's not too bad. I could get my VCP4 then take the test for VCP5 around December and my work should reimburse me when I pass the exam.. since I would guess my 4.1 class wouldn't count towards sitting for the VCP5 by itself anyways.

As for the pricing... I'll have to wait to see how it affects us. Our current hosts are quad-socket with 128 GB RAM and Enterprise Plus licensing, so we are covered even if we want to add memory up to 192 GB on each host (which we aren't using all the memory now as it is).
 
farscapesg1 said:
2/29/12 huh... that's not too bad. I could get my VCP4 then take the test for VCP5 around December and my work should reimburse me when I pass the exam.. since I would guess my 4.1 class wouldn't count towards sitting for the VCP5 by itself anyways.

As for the pricing... I'll have to wait to see how it affects us. Our current hosts are quad-socket with 128 GB RAM and Enterprise Plus licensing, so we are covered even if we want to add memory up to 192 GB on each host (which we aren't using all the memory now as it is).
Click to expand...

Yeah I better get busy on passing VCP4 quickly and getting my class out of the way.
 
Awww does that mean I need to recertify? Guess I'll start hitting the books and kb's right when it releases.
 
First, I want to say I really dislike some (already mentioned)aspects the new licensing. Second, I'm really liking some of the new features and cautious on others.

Third, an actual question. How much longer are VCP4 courses and exams going to be offered for? I want to be able to get both my VCP4, and then take the upgrade for 5 so that I can say I have/had both.
 
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I'm just happy the Essentials/Essentials Plus license for the most part stays the same. With three hosts in your cluster, your total pooled vRAM is 144GB--which is more than enough for my SMB customers.
 
jenuster said:
I'm just happy the Essentials/Essentials Plus license for the most part stays the same. With three hosts in your cluster, your total pooled vRAM is 144GB--which is more than enough for my SMB customers.
Click to expand...

Yep. And remember..it's allocated space. So if you do 3 hosts and leave one for HA, like you should, that gives you 72GB of RAM to allocate across two usable hosts.
 
The whole vRAM licensing will be the single reason we will NOT upgrade to 5.

I'm not a fan of an 'upgrade' really being a downgrade.

This licensing model makes no !@#$ing sense. VMware you don't sell hardware, what you sell is software. Quite simply less does not equal more.

The ONLY way I could reconcile with a vRAM licensing model is to throw out processor licensing AND bring down price. Right now I'm looking at spending ~15K$ every three years (between VMware and Symantec) per host just for software and support (2 procs, 144GB RAM, Enterprise licenses). Our management does not understand why our software seems to cost more every time we purchase it - especially if we don't need any of the features that justify the price increase. In the case of vSphere 4 and 5, the only increases in price have been from licensing changes.

Don't get me wrong, to me VMware simply has no real competition. But we're paying the price for that now. I work in not-for-profit healthcare, and $15K/blade is very hard to justify in licensing alone. We really stuck our necks out asking the board for the $9K it cost before. If going to v5 means we will be losing 160GB ram between 2 blades alone - we simply won't upgrade. In that case "upgrade" is a !@#$!ing misnomer - period.
 
If you dont need any of the new features....then why would you upgrade if its going to cost you?:rolleyes:
 
NetJunkie said:
Yep. And remember..it's allocated space. So if you do 3 hosts and leave one for HA, like you should, that gives you 72GB of RAM to allocate across two usable hosts.
Click to expand...

Can you please elaborate on this? Wouldn't you have 96 GB of RAM to allocate across two usable hosts? (2 Essentials Plus license on each host to support 2 procs)?
 
nitrobass24 said:
If you dont need any of the new features....then why would you upgrade if its going to cost you?:rolleyes:
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You're still going to have to pay maintenance costs though, in which you can't upgrade to the next version which is one of the major benefits of being under maintenance.
 
I want to now move past the new licensing model and look at some of the new features that I find interesting with vSphere 5.

Some of the new storage features are very interesting. Profile-Driven Storage and Storage DRS might turn out to be very nice features. The overhaul they did to Storage I/O control with the ability to set QoS priorities on VMs is very interesting.

Fault Domain Manger, which used to be HA, has very much improved upon HA feature with the master-slave concept.

SRM 5.0 is definitely a step in the right direction with the ability to automatically failback from a failover. We are going to be implementing SRM in the next few months and this ability is a huge plus for us. I am not sure if we would use the new vSphere Replication feature since we are replicating between our production and DR SAN however this feature could be very useful for others.

vShield 5.0 could be beneficial especially for organizations like us that are bound by HIPAA and PCI regulations. I am still not sold on this however. I would have to see it being successful in real world before I would consider it.
 
The VMware forums have quite a few customers saying they're skipping the upgrade to vSphere 5 and, if necessary, they'll wait until 4.1 is EOL and evaluate moving to Hyper-V at that time.

This new licensing model is going to hurt VMware big time.
 
Child of Wonder said:
The VMware forums have quite a few customers saying they're skipping the upgrade to vSphere 5 and, if necessary, they'll wait until 4.1 is EOL and evaluate moving to Hyper-V at that time.

This new licensing model is going to hurt VMware big time.
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Yes, my previous employer I speak with regularly is talking about the same thing. VMware licensing already costs a premium, and now they're going to have to pay for what they've already got provisioned... not to mention room for growth. They need to readjust this... how could the have possibly listened to their customers making this decision. I'm all for per VM licensing, I think it is a good thing -- but you're going to have to be way more liberal with how much is granted per license.
 
defuseme2k said:
Yes, my previous employer I speak with regularly is talking about the same thing. VMware licensing already costs a premium, and now they're going to have to pay for what they've already got provisioned... not to mention room for growth. They need to readjust this... how could the have possibly listened to their customers making this decision. I'm all for per VM licensing, I think it is a good thing -- but you're going to have to be way more liberal with how much is granted per license.
Click to expand...

I agree. IMO, the vRAM sizes should be doubled for each edition. This will still require many customers to pay to upgrade, but not nearly as much as they would have to under the current model. This would still allow customers to buy servers loaded with RAM without paying a massive hike in licensing costs.

I've crunched the numbers for one of my clients and they'd have to pay out an additional $28,000 to move their 4 hosts from vSphere 4.1 Enterprise to 5.
 
Thankfully all my Essentials and Essentials Plus customers are going to be fine, but when you hear from your rep

"I'll take a look at this and get back to you with pricing, but it isn't going to be cheap"

you don't get a fuzzy feeling. If Microsoft can really enhance Hyper V's other OS support, and bring their game up on their HA / management I see a lot of people ditching ESX for Hyper V.
 
Right now we are going to have to wait and see. With all of the backlash coming out of the community VMware still has time to change things before 5.0 ships. It wouldn't suprise me if they bumped up the vRAM per license. It also wouldn't suprise me if the just left it like it is and hope that they don't lose many customers. They currently have the best product on the market with all of the features vSphere has. They are banking on no other product being able to compete with that. This is a good time for Microsoft to step up their game with Hyper-V and start truly competing with VMWare.
 
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