Στο WPC είδαμε πραγματικά υπέροχα πράγματα. Θα επικεντρωθώ όμως σε θέματα που αφορούν το virtualization. Είδαμε demo από Windows Server “8” το οποίο μπορείτε να δείτε εδώ, αν πάτε στο 36:50 θα δείτε 2 φανταστικά features. Τα αναφέρω επιγραμματικά γιατί μας έφερε τα νέα ο Hyper-Vagelis εδώ .

- Υποστήριξη περισσοτέρων από 16 virtual processors στον Hyper-V

- Hyper-v replication

Πάρα πολύ σημαντικό είναι ότι αυτά τα features και κυρίως το replication παρέχονται ΔΩΡΕΑΝ . Σε κάποιες παρουσιάσεις για το virtualization που παρακολούθησα υπήρχε ένα “κλασσικό” slide που με μεγάλη μου χαρά σας παραθέτω.

Και ο ανταγωνισμός βλέποντας πόσο ψηλά είναι στο pricing και το μερίδιο αγοράς που χάνει συνεχόμενα

Πήρε την απόφαση να αλλάξει το licensing, να ανακοινώσει ένα καινούργιο licensing feature το vRam και όπως συνηθίζει να το ΧΡΕΩΝΕΙ. Αλήθεια η σχέση σας με τον GAP ποια είναι ??? Έγινε σούσουρο στο internet και το “feature” ονομάστηκε vTAX .

Στο επίσημο document VMware vSphere 5.0 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging, στην σελίδα 3 γράφει “vSphere 5.0 will be licensed on a per processor basis with a vRAM entitlement. Each vSphere 5.0 CPU license will entitle the purchaser to a specific amount of vRAM, or memory configured to virtual machines.”

Επειδή όμως κάποιοι συνάδελφοι μου λένε “ ε καλά εσύ είσαι Microsoft boy” ή “ τι άλλο θα έλεγες εσύ ??” και δεν καταλαβαίνουν ότι θέλω απλά να προστατεύσω την επένδυση τους και τα λεφτά τους, ας δούμε τι λένε οι ίδιοι οι πελάτες της vmware

Στο twitter έχει δημιουργηθεί ενα hashtag #vtax αφιερωμένο στο νέο vSphere Memory Tax topic. Ας ρίξουμε μια ματιά

Βέβαια και ο τύπος του χώρου μας δεν άφησε αυτή την “ιδέα” ασχολίαστη

· 1. The Register: VMware Taxes your Virtual Memory

Customer Comment: “We are getting Dell R800's: Two 10 core cpu's and 512 GB of ram. That gives us 20 real cores and 40 from a scheduling perspective. We rarely need CPU, so you can oversubscribe the crap out of it. What we need is memory. With 4.x we needed 2 Enterprise Plus licenses. Now we need 10. A 500% increase so that the cost of the license is now significantly more than the hardware.”

2. ZDNet: Customers Wary of vSphere 5’s Revamped Pricing Model

"This new licensing model is going to hurt small shops the most I think. We currently have over 40 VMs [virtual machines] running each dual CPU 128GB RAM host," TysonL wrote on the forum on Tuesday. "To fully use the RAM in our servers we will have to pay 50 percent more [than] currently budgeted. Seeing as I work at a public university that is going to be fun to try and justify."

...and…

VMware has said the pricing change is designed to simplify the cost of licensing its hypervisor, but some customers view it as a tax on server RAM.

...and…

"Very shocked here, I can't go to my boss and explain that our recent investment in three new bladeservers with 128GB memory and 2 CPUs has to be licensed with extra VMware licences because there's 'so much RAM' in it," Vince77 wrote on the forum on Wednesday.

3. CRN: VMware Customers Fuming over VSphere Licensing Changes

VMware customers are venting their spleen over the licensing changes coming in vSphere 5, which in some cases will amount to a significant price hike.

…and…

Evidence of customers' frustration can be found on Twitter, where the #Vtax hashtag has sprung up and attracted a steady stream of vitriolic -- and sometimes colorful -- commentary. "Meet us at Boston Harbor -- we are dumping copies of VMware Workstation.

4. ITNews: VMware Users Rail Against Licensing Changes

“Some required to double, triple VMware licenses.”

5. TechTarget: VMware Pricing Changes Add Cost To The Cloud

Analyst Comment: “VMware’s controversial licensing and pricing changes in vSphere 5, leaked today are positively uncloud-like when it comes to cost…”

6. Ars Technica: What Will the VMware vSphere 5 Licensing Changes Mean For You

Comment: “We literally just deployed a few million dollars worth of Cisco B230 M2 blades with dual E7-2850s and 256GB each. We're already pushing north of 20:1 consolidation ratio and if this licensing stands, our VMware bill will _more than double_. <Expletive Deleted> VMware.”

Αλλά ΟΚ ας γίνω αντικειμενικός και να δούμε στα forum της Vmware τι λένε ……

· http://communities.vmware.com/thread/320877?start=0&tstart=0

Comment 1:

I took a minute to read the licensing guide for vSphere 5 and I'm still trying to pull my jaw off the floor. VMware has completely screwed their customers this time. Why?

What I used to be able to do with 2 CPU licenses now takes 4. Incredible.

Today

BL460c G7 with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 2 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
DL585 G7 with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses

Tomorrow

BL460c G7 with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
BL585 G7 with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 6 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses

So it's almost as if VMware is putting a penalty on density and encouraging users to buy hardware with more sockets rather than less.

I get that the vRAM entitlements are for what you use, not necessarily what you have, but who buys memory and doesn't use it?

Forget the hoopla about a VM with 1 TB of memory. Who in their right mind would deploy that using the new license model? It would take 22 licenses to accommodate! You could go out and buy the physical box for way less than that today, from any hardware vendor.

Anyone else completely shocked by this move?

Comment #2:

Re: vSphere 5 Licensing

It isn't just you. We just purchased ten dual-socket servers with 192GB RAM each (enterprise license level) and we'll need to triple our license count to be able to use all available RAM if allocated by VMs. Ridiculous

Comment #3:

The new licensing model is even worse on the SMB side:

Today:

2 x DL380 G7, 2 CPUs and 96 GB RAM each = Essentials Plus Kit

Tomorrow:

2 x DL380 G7, 2 CPUs and 96 GB RAM each = Standard Kit

That is about 300% (yes, THREE HUNDRED PERCENT) increase in price. Good luck explaining the added cost to your boss

Comment #4:

> Anyone else completely shocked by this move?

Yes, I am totally floored by it... We're going to end up with 6 dual CPU servers with 1.5TB of memory (so 12 CPU Enterprise Plus licences). With the new scheme, it looks like we're going to have to purchase an additional 20 CPU licences just to use what we have.

We were looking to move an SQL over to ESXi - it's a 256GB monster, so we were going to dedicate a host for it (it's good for DR). Rather than the 2 CPU licences we would have needed, we're going to need 6 now - just for the one server. So three times as many licences now.

Comment #5:

Also, from the VMware Community Forum.

Okay, here is a real world scenario for you:

· 7 Dell PowerEdge R815s with 512GB of memory each (448 usable with spare row configured), and 4 cpus

· 4 Dell PowerEdge R715s with 128GB of memory each and 2 cpus.

With vSphere 4.x, this takes 36 Enterprise Plus licenses and gives us access to all the memory.

Assuming we hold out 448GB of memory (the largest increment) in reserve for failover, we will have 3200GB of memory available for use.

After upgrading to vSphere 5.x, we will only be licensed for 1728GB NOT the previous 3200GB.

We will have to purchase 31 additional Enterprise Plus licenses to regain the ability to use all of that memory.

That’s an additional $108,345 in licensing the customer will need to pay VMware to use the memory they already paid for and we’re using with their previous version.

Comment #6:

Comment #7: Here’s another comment from VMware’s public blog:

VMware, I know you’re looking for ANY reason to divert attention from the vsphere 5 Licensing Disaster, but this article isn’t going to do it. Can we just call a spade a spade? The vsphere 5 licensing change is a plain money grab/<expletive deleted> customers by VMware and you guys are pitching this as good for me. STOP INSULTING MY INTELLIGENCE.

You have stated that most people will not be affected. Is anyone from VMware reading their own forums? There are 50+ pages of ticked off VMware customers. Twitter has started numerous hash tags including VTAX and the VMware response is, “no really, it’s not that bad” or “it’s your fault right size your vms,” or “scale out not up.”

THIS IS HOW YOU TREAT US?

If you think about what you’re saying, the guidance vmware has been giving their customers for years and how vmware is marketed you realize just how ridiculous, misguided and insulting this licensing is to customers.

VMware says the new VTAX/Memory Tax is “really not that bad.” This is simply not true. Read your own forums. We’ve done the math and we’re going to see just over a 300% increase. 300%. My boss is <expletive deleted> beyond words.

Vmware states “Vsphere 5 for desktops is great for VDI.” Haven’t looked and don’t even care. The last thing we’re going to do is even consider VMware for VDI (or anything else) after this. NOT A CHANCE. We’re not going to take the chance of deploying vmware for VDI only to have you jack up the price the next time around.

VMware says: “Hardware constraints have been removed.” This is a shell game. No, you have replaced one dumb constraint that you created with a new worse constraint and you’re telling us this is good for us. SERIOUSLY, DO YOU THINK WE’RE STUPID? I loathe writing in all caps, but considering there are 50 pages in the forums that are saying the same exact thing (which you are ignoring), maybe this will get someone’s attention.

VMware says: “This new licensing is great for cloud computing.” If this new licensing is a step toward cloud computing, we’re in big trouble. Virtualization has been helping us save money. We run more apps on fewer servers. You’re now saying that’s not true anymore. The more apps, the more it costs. Say again? Why am I moving to the cloud? This contradicts everything vmware has said for years.

VMware says: “Scale out over Scale Up.” I’ve been advocating scale out over scale up, but vmware has been telling us FOR YEARS to scale up so we the followed the guidance. That’s what we’ve been doing. Now you’re screwing us for FOLLOWING YOUR GUIDANCE.

VMware says: “Enforce customers to better right size.” Isn’t virtualization supposed to help me with this? Aren’t all your memory optimizations supposed to do this for me? Oh thats right, now you’re penalizing me for this fact. BTW, thanks for calling us stupid and demanding more money. We, your customers, love that. We don’t know any better. Perhaps you’d like to kick my dog too.

Αφήνω τα σχόλια σε εσάς ….

Βέβαια η εταιρεία δεν άφησε τα γεγονότα στην τύχη τους και ανταποκρίθηκε για να σταθεί στο ύψος των περιστάσεων.

- Έκανε ένα live webminar , στο οποίο ο ομιλητής έδωσε τα νέα και εδώ είναι τα σχόλια από τους συμμετέχοντες

- Στο παρακάτω video σε συνέντευξη που έδωσε ο Co –President Carl Eschenbach στο 2:45 είπε “I actually think our channel and customers are excited about this change” (the new licensing).

- Σε άλλη συνέντεξη που έδωσε ο CEO Paul Maritz είπε

"We believe that 95 percent of customers will see no change in their licensing costs. From our calculations, most customers will see no change and won't be required to pay us more money," Maritz said in a Q&A during VMware's Q2 earnings call.

"It’s a metric that reflects the value [customers are] getting out of the software as opposed to the hardware packaged underneath it. That is the whole direction that cloud in general is heading -- pay as you drink, provisioning everything up front," said Maritz. "It's not so much that we're trying to give customers a better or worse deal, we're trying to change the metric we use to measure value."

Μάλλον στο synch με τους πελάτες τους υπάρχει κάποιο error αλλά χωρίς SCOM δεν το έχουν καταλάβει ακόμα ….

Όμως, όπως είχε πει και ο Νάσος “ ας μιλήσουμε με γεγονότα”

Ας κάνουμε μια σύγκριση για να δούμε το Memory Tax πως επηρεάζει το pricing σε ένα configuration με ένα server και διάφορα memory configs χρησιμοποιώντας VMware vShpere 5.0 και Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1

….. από το δωρεάν μέχρι και τα max 161.000$ έχει διαφορά …

Ας δούμε και το σενάριο με 10 servers

Και αν αναρωτηθείτε για την free version του esxi , την έκαναν downgrade και η έκδοση 5.0 υποστηρίζει μέχρι 8GB max.

Ο παραπάνω πίνακας δεν ξέρω αν συμπεριλαμβάνει και την ιατρική περίθαλψη του CFO.

Ας δούμε όμως και την σύγκριση με το μοντέλο core infrastructure που αγαπάω πολύ. Το Microsoft ECI (Enrollment for Core Infrastructure) περιλαμβάνει :

· Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Datacenter Edition and System Center Datacenter Edition and Forefront Security. At a very high level, this provides:

o Unlimited number of virtualized Windows Server instances

o Management for an unlimited number of virtual machines (and more importantly the apps running within those VMs) for all of System Center including:

Operations Manager

Configuration Manager

Data Protection Manager

Service Manager

Opalis (Orchestrator)

Opalis was released this past year and added to the System Center Suite this past year. Existing customers received this automatically added at no additional cost.

Virtual Machine Manager

Forefront for an unlimited number of virtual machines which provides a unified, multilayered, and highly manageable approach to protecting servers from malware

Και μην ξεχνάμε πως ανάλογη σουίτα με την System Center απλά ΔΕΝ υπάρχει ….

Και τα ποσά για έναν server είναι …

Ενώ για 10 server είναι ….

…………..

Πραγματικά τα σχόλια είναι περιττά, αλλά εγώ θα τα κάνω .

Προστατέψτε τις επιχειρήσεις σας, μην πετάτε τα λεφτά σας. Επίσης αν έχετε ήδη υποδομή vmware taxing, σκουπίστε τα δάκρυα από τα μάτια σας μην πάτε ακόμα στον οικονομικό διευθυντή (και μετά στο λογιστήριο) . Έχουμε λύση … και λέγεται SCVMM, θα managάρετε την υπάρχουσα υποδομή σας, θα έχετε βάλει μυαλό και θα την μεταφέρετε σε Hyper-v infrastructure και θα πάτε μετά στον οικονομικό και θα του πείτε ότι γλιτώσατε ένα καράβι δολάρια έξοδα για την Virtualized υποδομή σας.

Το μόνο που μπορείτε να πάθετε είναι να κερδίσετε τα εύσημα και να κοιμάστε ήσυχος τα βράδια γιατί με System Center Suite και Hyper-V η υποδομή θα είναι always up ‘n running.

Think smart my friends