{"id":400,"date":"2011-07-15T15:21:09","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T21:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benincosa.com\/blog\/?p=400"},"modified":"2014-11-19T11:25:16","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T17:25:16","slug":"vsphere-5-licensing-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/?p=400","title":{"rendered":"vSphere 5 Licensing fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE (Aug 3, 2011): VMware changed the licensing model addressing many of the disadvantages laid out in this post. Among them: the monster 1TB VM will not be super expensive and the Enterprise+ license went up to 96GB of vRAM. <\/em> <\/p>\n

The new vSphere 5 licensing information has taken the VMware blogger world by storm. \u00a0So I thought I might join in the fun.<\/p>\n

What’s happened? \u00a0VMware announced vSphere 5 on July 12, 2011. \u00a0With all its cool new features<\/a>, is a new licensing model that is different from the old one. \u00a0 So let’s examine how this effects your organization. \u00a0Most of the material I got from the vSphere Pricing<\/a> PDF.<\/p>\n

What the licensing change is<\/h2>\n

Before, the license was per CPU socket. \u00a0This cost was around $3495 for the Enterprise Plus license. \u00a0Now the cost is based on CPU sockets and variable amount of vRAM. \u00a0(VMware argues that vRAM is not the same as physical RAM). \u00a0 One common example is that if you buy 2 Enterprise Plus licenses for a 2 socket system, you’ll get 96GB of vRAM available to use.<\/p>\n

Why Licensing had to change<\/h2>\n

VMware’s white paper spins it as a good thing. \u00a0(no mystery why they did this). \u00a0But here is what I think the real reason is: \u00a0We’ve seen in the last decade a trend of adding more CPU cores per socket. \u00a0What started out as a dual core movement is now in less than 10 years at 12 cores per socket. \u00a0Imagine the next few years: \u00a024 cores per socket? \u00a064 cores per socket? \u00a0128 cores per socket? \u00a0Not all that hard to imagine. \u00a0Also consider the memory DIMMs: \u00a016GB DIMMs, 32 GB DIMMS (those are already here!) \u00a064 GB DIMMs… you get the idea.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for a software company like VMware that licenses per CPU socket? \u00a0It means that in several years, people won’t need as many CPU socket license because they’ll be able to put more VMs on a physical host, so they’ll need less socket licenses. \u00a0That means less money for VMware.<\/p>\n

VMware like any business is in business to make money, and having profits eroded is not a good thing. \u00a0So they decided to take action now and make it so that innovations in physical hardware do not erode their earnings.<\/p>\n

Who is this change bad for?<\/h2>\n

This is bad for customers right now who have 2 CPU socket systems with greater than 96GB of memory. \u00a0Hardware vendors like IBM and Cisco have been showing customers how they can save licensing costs on servers by adding more memory to existing 2 socket servers. \u00a0For example:<\/p>\n

A system like the\u00a0Cisco B250 <\/a>which allows up to 384 GB of RAM will now require you pay for 8 licenses instead of 2. This is a huge penalty!<\/p>\n

A system like the IBM HX5 <\/a>which allows up to 256GB of RAM in a single wide blade with two CPU sockets will require \u00a0you to pay for 6 licenses instead of 2.<\/p>\n

This is also bad for people that over allocate Virtual memory. \u00a0Its common practice for people to overcommit memory<\/a>. \u00a0 Since you’re paying for vRAM this means that you may be potentially paying more. \u00a0This is funny because VMware in the past has said\u00a0overcommitting\u00a0memory is one of the good reasons to move to virtualization.<\/p>\n

Its also bad for people with Virtual Machines with large memory. \u00a0VMware announced that they can now create a VM with 1TB of memory<\/a>! \u00a0That’s great news, but consider the cost in vRAM: \u00a0That’s 21 Enterprise Plus licenses at $3,495 = $73,395! \u00a0Probably cheaper to use a real machine for that one?<\/p>\n

This is bad for people who use Citrix Xen Desktop with VMware vSphere on the backend. \u00a0Its interesting that there is a completely different pricing model for people using VMware View with vSphere. \u00a0I think this licensing issue will force people to make a choice: \u00a0Go with VMware View or go Xen Desktop with Xen hypervisor on the backend.<\/del><\/p>\n

The above may not be entirely true. \u00a0There is also a new product SKU called vSphere 5 Desktop <\/a>that allows for 100 VM desktops priced at $6500<\/a>. \u00a0This license\u00a0supersedes the vSphere license so if you run Desktop VMs then your cost for the higher memory systems like the Cisco B250 would not go up.<\/p>\n

Who is the change is good for?<\/h2>\n

Well for now its good for the standard 2 socket systems that have less than 96GB of RAM like\u00a0the\u00a0HP Proliant BL2x220c G7<\/a> blade which allows up to 96GB of RAM per server instance will require 2 per server, so 4. \u00a0No change here. \u00a0Same with the Cisco B200s with 16GB DIMMS which goes up to 96GB with 16GB DIMMS. \u00a0The problem is this won’t last for long. \u00a0As I mentioned before, RAM and CPU core density will only increase meaning you’ll have to pay more for the licenses. \u00a016GB DIMMs will get cheaper and x86 processors will allow more DIMM slots in the future. \u00a0(The Cisco B250 already allows 48 DIMM slots on a 2 socket system).<\/p>\n

The VMware marketing literature states that the vRAM can be pooled. \u00a0So if one system in your datacenter has only 16GB of RAM on a 2 socket system, then you’ll get all kinds of vRAM that you can use on other systems that may have more memory.<\/p>\n

A proposed better solution<\/h2>\n

I’m not opposed to VMware making more money. \u00a0As physical server capabilities increase, VMware wants to get more money out of its utilization. \u00a0Even though the prices of physical servers will most likely remain the same, it appears VMware software will scale with the number of VMs deployed.<\/p>\n

I would propose that there be vRAM entitlements decoupled from the CPU cores that cost less money. \u00a0For example, instead of paying for 8 vSphere licenses for a Cisco B250, why not make us pay for 2 vSphere 5 licenses plus 6 48GB vRAM entitlements that are priced at a different rate? \u00a0Make these vRents (vRAM entitlements) 1\/4th the cost of the socket license? \u00a0Here’s the analysis of the B250:<\/p>\n

vSphere 4.1 license: \u00a02 licenses: $6,990 (2x$3495)<\/p>\n

vSphere 5.0 license: 8 licenses: $27,960 (8x$3495)<\/p>\n

my proposal: \u00a0vSphere 5.0 license + vRents: $12,233 = $6,990 (2x$3495) + $5,243 (6x$873)<\/p>\n

I don’t like that its double the cost of the previous vSphere 4.1 but at least its better than the 400% increase of what we had before.<\/p>\n

The Future?<\/h2>\n

VMware has changed pricing models before. \u00a0Just ask my friends in the Data center space where they now have to pay for hosting solutions. \u00a0But VMware is so far ahead of anyone else right now, its hard to know what type of backlash they will get. \u00a0Sure people will grumble when they need to pay more, but most likely people will just pay it. \u00a0So Hyper-V and Xen and KVM, what do you have to say to all of this? \u00a0Its your move!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE (Aug 3, 2011): VMware changed the licensing model addressing many of the disadvantages laid out in this post. Among them: the monster 1TB VM will not be super expensive and the Enterprise+ license went up to 96GB of vRAM. The new vSphere 5 licensing information has taken the VMware blogger world by storm. \u00a0So…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[990,986,22,39],"tags":[121],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=400"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2788,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400\/revisions\/2788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benincosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}