VMWare to Scrap vRAM Licensing Model

VMware Kills vRAM Licensing, Will Focus On vSphere Cloud Bundles

Starting in 5.1, which will be debuted at VMWorld, VMWare is apparently going to announce they are dropping the new vRAM licensing model and going back to the per-CPU licensing model.

Nice.

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Comments

Akaricloud

Interesting..

It definitely would simplify their licensing model. I'm surprised to see them going away from it so quick though.

QHalo

I just bought new licenses a month ago. So now I wonder if we overbought. So frustrating...

ptilsen

I'm in favor of a per-physical-CPU model. I've always thought per-core and vRAM models were horrible, and combining RAM and processors was especially bad. In fact, I'd be in favor of a per-host model or a combined per-host/per-CPU model.

Financial benefits to virtualization tend to go out the window with the higher levels of vSphere licensing under the current model. VMware should charge for instances of the hypervisor and supporting it instead of trying to earn huge margins on hardware power, IMO. The latter method may provide a larger margin, but at the cost of driving everyone to purchase cheaper versions or switch to Hyper-V.

DigitalZeroOne

Thank you Microsoft, Citrix, and every company that competes in the virtualization space. Competition creates lower prices and better products. I really like working with vSphere, but I will admit that I really want to see what Hyper-V has, especially when version 3 launches with Server 2012.

Of course, I will work with whatever product the customer has, and it's probably going to be VMware for quite a while, but nothing is wrong with setting up a Hyper-V server on an unused blade is it?

blargoe

I wonder what bundling vCOps, vCloud Director, etc is going to do to the price of the upcoming per-CPU pricing, and ongoing maintenance costs...

SteveLord

Sometimes I feel software licensing should require it's own certification.

cyberguypr

Love to read this. I'm loving Maritz's departure.

@SteveLord Only those of us who have experienced true, unadulterated licensing pain understand this. HA!

ptilsen

MS and VMware both have sales certification programs focused on licensing, and the technical exams have lots of licensing on them, too. However, I would agree that what's there is hardly sufficient, and I've found myself deep into Google searches many times just to answer simple licensing questions.

vNerd

SteveLord wrote: »

Sometimes I feel software licensing should require it's own certification.

Every time I have to do VMware license reconciliations I feel the same way.

That said, I am really glad to see the per-socket license model return.

MentholMoose

SteveLord wrote: »

Sometimes I feel software licensing should require it's own certification.

Here you go:
Designing and Providing Microsoft Volume Licensing Solutions to Small and Medium Organizations
Designing and Providing Microsoft Volume Licensing Solutions to Large Organizations

jibbajabba

Microsoft doesn't even know themselves the whole license thing .. We have a "license" professional in our company once to clear up some SPLA confusion - he knew nothing, every question was answered with "I'll come back to you on that" - which he never did

pwjohnston

SteveLord wrote: »

Sometimes I feel software licensing should require it's own certification.

+1 on that. But then again, isn't that what the IT Directors and CIOs get paid to figure out?

RouteThisWay

pwjohnston wrote: »

+1 on that. But then again, isn't that what the IT Directors and CIOs get paid to figure out?

lol nope. They get paid to tell someone underneath them to figure it out. And then show on a graph how much money they saved the company by reducing licensing costs

jesseou812

IMHO, anything that goes beyond a per CPU, per seat, or per server licenses is just bogus. Buyer beware.