Jim there is nothing cheap about VMWare. Although they will pitch the whole 'sever consolidation' aspect as a major benefit, we're finging it really isn't. The bottom line is that it's a heck of alot cheaper to purchase 2 dual CPU servers than it is to purchase 1 quad CPU server. The gap gets larger and larger the more CPUs you are talking about. How much are you paying for a 32-way?
Then you get into alot of other issues like network cards and traffic because your not just sharing CPU, you are sharing other resources you traditionaly havent shared before. Enter the single point of failure. If you have one 32-way, you'll probably want a second for redundancy.... Atleast for us, we have an abundant amount of room in our dataCenter and we already have 100s of physical servers. So we arent moving to VMs for consolidation. We are looking for the management benefits. In most cases we have a single VM running per server. Our databases for instance need all the resources it can get, it doesnt make sense to split up its resources with CF. But with VMs we do have the ability to pull that 'instance' to another server, patch it, test it, and put it right back into production without any loss of uptime. Secondly, if traffic to our CF clusters go up, we deploy more pre-built cf 'instances' to increase the amount of nodes in the cluster. Throw a couple SANs into the mix and things just get crazy cool. Your entire infrastructure can be replicated to an off-site facility with the click of a mouse. Management is really where VMs become cost effective, not consolidation, although it seems like that on the surface. Let's not turn this into CF bashng either. Speaking with MM about this last week they were very honest about the fact that this licensing scheme may not be the best in all situations (say for a 32-way). They said that if the numbers don't work out, to contact them and they will work with you. Oracle for instance is not a cool. I can number a series of other companie who are trying to rape us on licensing costs as well, infact we'll probably end up increasing our CF development because of how costly it is to deploy OracleAS to VMs. -Adam On 8/17/05, Jim Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Russ Michaels [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 4:51 PM > > To: CF-Talk > > Subject: RE: CF Licensing on VMs? > > > > So you actually want to pay per virtual server instead of per physical > > box, > > which will obviously cost more. > > Are you mad? > > How so? > > We've got one, say, 32 processor box. Running, say, 20 VMs (some VMs are > assigned one processor, some two, some more - it all depends on performance > needs). However only TWO of those VMs are running CF and both are dedicated > to a single physical processor. > > If (as I think we should) we pay per physical processor which will run CF > we're only paying for one, or maybe two, licenses (CF can be installed on > two processors with one license, but those processors must be on the same > physical machine: it's unclear here how that would settle out.) > > In any case: at the most we'd be paying $12,000 to run CF on these two VM's > and two physical processors. > > However under the current scheme we're paying at least $96,000 (32 > processors * 16 2 Proc CF Enterprise Licenses) to legally license ALL 32 > processors. > > More than that however we have to pay this on SEVERAL boxes. The Dev and > Integration servers are in one, internally accessible, facility while the > Staging and Production servers are in two other facilities (the Staging > boxes also being configured as geographically separate disaster recovery > boxes). > > So if the internal Dev and Integration VMs are on on box and the Staging VM > is on another and two two production VMs on another (and if all these > physical boxes are 32-way boxes) we're actually paying $288,000 to run CF on > 5 physical processors. > > I think my math is pretty solid here. ;^) > > Jim Davis > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Discover CFTicket - The leading ColdFusion Help Desk and Trouble Ticket application http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=48 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:215511 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
