VMware’s new license model may have admins running to Hyper-V

It was all the buzz this past week: EMC VMware has changed its licensing with vSphere 5 from a model that is based on processor cores and physical memory to a model that charges based upon both a per-CPU-socket price (as it was before) and virtual memory (vRAM), which is the amount of RAM you might allocate to a system regardless of the physical memory within the machine. The vRAM is broken up into entitlements based upon the edition you purchase.

The way the new license structure works is that each license comes with an allocation of memory assigned to a number of pools and shared among the virtual infrastructure. With the following editions you get the vRAM amounts listed:

• Standard Edition: 24GB per CPU license
• Enterprise Edition: 32GB per CPU license
• Enterprise Plus Edition: 48GB per CPU license

[ InfoWorld’s Savio Rodrigues says the new VMware licensing could drive IT to using more open source virtualization. | Ted Samson covers the vSphere 5 feature set in his column “VMware unleashes vSphere 5 and souped-up cloud suite.” | Stay abreast of key Microsoft technologies in InfoWorld’s Technology: Microsoft newsletter. ]

The vRAM from all the licenses you own is pooled or added up on the vCenter server. If you need more vRAM, you have to purchase additional CPU licenses for the edition you use. You cannot share excess vRAM allowance between editions, although you can share within pools on the same edition. And keep in mind that this is not referring to RAM that is actually being used but rather RAM that is simply allocated or configured. Many organizations overallocate RAM through an overcommit strategy; now they must reevaluate their virtualization structure.

Some people believe the entitled vRAM allocation is too low, but VMware says it calculated the allocation based upon the averages of its customers’ deployments. The average VMware customers use a “5:1 consolidation ratio on their hosts (five virtual machines for every physical CPU socket), and on average, customers configure 3GB of memory per virtual machines,” reports David Davis, a VMware vExpert.

Nobody is disagreeing that vSphere 5 is an impressive suite with powerful features that give VMware another leap ahead of rivals Citrix, Microsoft, and Red Hat. But this licensing punch in the gut has many administrators rethinking their need for the “best” virtualization solution and looking back to what Microsoft offers, which — in my opinion — is a very good, affordable, and ever-improving virtualization product that, when combined with System Center tools, is competitive with vCenter. Obviously until Microsoft releases Hyper-V Version 3, it will be difficult to say if VMware’s current advantages remain unique.

Some people may believe — along the lines of what my colleague Savio Rodrigues has argued — that this licensing issue leaves the door ajar for open source options. I agree that there will be an exodus — perhaps minor, perhaps major — from VMware (which was already suffering from being an expensive product compared to others), but I believe the majority of VMware expats will look to Microsoft, not open source, for their future. These are people who have had the pampered experience of a VMware environment, and they’re not just going to run off to open source tools, which are not known for their five-star support and ease-of-use.

The issue for many administrators — what has them quivering over this price model switch — is that with VMware you can have one amount of physical RAM but commit (or overcommit) memory that exceeds the physical RAM in the system, so VMs are running with the impression that they have more memory than they actually do. This is a feature that VMware has pushed and promoted, and admins who followed VMware’s advice suddenly find themselves being punished financially for having done so. Suddenly, a system with 16GB of physical RAM but overcommitted to 32GB doesn’t look so smart anymore. (Microsoft’s Hyper-V offers dynamic memory, which provides for a similar overcommit.)

I’ve endorsed the memory overcommit approach, mainly because it allows you to take advantage of systems with less physical RAM while running servers that called for more RAM, though I recommend it only in best-practices environments or for support. If memory overcommitting makes sense technically in your environment, I still recommend it, but not necessary at VMware’s new, higher price.

The motivation behind the new licensing model is obvious: VMware is hoping to get more money out of its customers. That is usually smart business. But when you do it so blatantly that it has the entire community up in arms, it can be a really dumb move. Obviously there are worse models VMware could have chosen to go with (such as pricing per VM), but I don’t hear IT admins saying, “Well, it could be worse.” I believe many are instead starting to say, “You know, I haven’t given Hyper-V a chance. Perhaps now I should.”

Where do you stand on this? Will you stick with vSphere because you’re comfortable with it and love the features enough to offset any price increase? Will you stay because this price change won’t really affect you? Will you shop for greener pastures in the Hyper-V or open source space? Let us know in the comments.

This article, “VMware’s new license model may have admins running to Hyper-V,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of J. Peter Bruzzese’s Enterprise Windows blog and follow the latest developments in Windows at InfoWorld.com. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.