We don't run as N+1 – can't afford the additional hardware spread between two buildings. N+1 is on my wishlist for the next couple years after the state maybe stops screwing my budget, but at the moment it's just a fond dream.
With N+1 your socket licenses for the +1 are basically just additional vRAM for your cluster, which is fine at my density level but when you hit the max density of some of the higher-end chassises out there you're still looking at a massive increase in license costs. ---- Jack Kramer Manager of Information Technology University Relations, Michigan State University w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 From: Anders Blomgren <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:31:51 -0400 To: NT System Admin Issues <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: vSphere 5 - Big License Changes Since it's going to be running vRam that shouldn't matter. Or are you exceeding HA constraints? Most orgs run their clusters at N+1 or even N+2 for large clusters. -Anders Sent from my iPhone On 13 jul 2011, at 16:24, "Kramer, Jack" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: As a SMB group in a large enterprise we're going to be hit by this licensing change. I have a 4 host cluster, 2 CPUs per host, with 2 hosts at 96GB and 2 at 48GB. I was planning on upgrading the 48s to 96 shortly but at this point I probably wouldn't be able to pay for the licenses needed to do that. With my 8 Enterprise licenses I'm already going to be licensed for only 256GB of my 288GB physical RAM so without any upgrade I'm going to need another CPU license just to use all the RAM I have now. If I want to upgrade? Might as well switch my Enterprise licenses for Enterprise Plus, with the corresponding per-socket purchase and support increase, or just forget about getting any more RAM for my hosts. vSphere 5 has a ton of new features, and several of them pay off big for my environment (especially things like datastore improvements, etc) but at what cost? Hyper-V isn't at the moment a viable solution – MelioFS from Sanbolic gets you hot migration and the Microsoft equivalent of working HA mode with relatively immediate failover but you still don't have a good solution for Fault Tolerant VMs like vSphere offers and their virtual networking is much more primitive. Windows 8 and Hyper-V 3.0, though, are now positioned to drive a stake into VMware's heart if they can develop a FT solution and perhaps get Sanbolic to drop their pricing a bit. ---- Jack Kramer Manager of Information Technology University Relations, Michigan State University w: 517-884-1231 / c: 248-635-4955 From: "Andrew S. Baker" <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: NT System Admin Issues <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:12:46 -0400 To: NT System Admin Issues <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: Re: vSphere 5 - Big License Changes Depends on how you define SMB.... I work for/with two that do. For most workloads, RAM is more of a bottleneck than CPU, and in a heavily virtualized environment, you're going to see lots of RAM. We have 4 VSphere hosts that we just upgraded to 120GB of RAM -- quad core boxes... Plus two new ones with 144GB, also quad core. ASB <http://about.me/Andrew.S.Baker>http://about.me/Andrew.S.Baker Harnessing the Advantages of Technology for the SMB market… On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 9:42 AM, Jonathan Link <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: How many SMBs run more than 24GB per proc now? I honestly can't see that many that would. I'm licensed for 6 proc's, meaning in my environment I could run a total of 144GB . I don't see this being a big deal for us in the SMB space. My hosts have less memory than the processor limit, as it is. Will this increase overtime? Likely. On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Webster <<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: One analyst says for some large VMware shops with large VMs this could quadruple their VMware licensing costs. Another analyst says VMware is sending a clear message to SMBs, “You can’t afford us”. Like MBS, I am NOT a VMware person. This is just my $0.02US worth. Webster From: Michael B. Smith [mailto:<mailto:[email protected]>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] Subject: RE: vSphere 5 - Big License Changes Great way for vmware to drive customers to Hyper-V. Regards, Michael B. Smith Consultant and Exchange MVP <http://TheEssentialExchange.com>http://TheEssentialExchange.com From: Paul Hutchings [mailto:[email protected]]<mailto:[mailto:[email protected]]> Subject: vSphere 5 - Big License Changes <http://blogs.softchoice.com/advisor/2011/07/12/big-changes-in-licensing-model-for-vmware-vsphere-5-vmware/>http://blogs.softchoice.com/advisor/2011/07/12/big-changes-in-licensing-model-for-vmware-vsphere-5-vmware/ Note how licensing is moving to be CPU based but limited by vRam. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <<http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: <http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <<http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/>http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: <http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/> http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ --- To manage subscriptions click here: http://lyris.sunbelt-software.com/read/my_forums/ or send an email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe ntsysadmin
