{"id":11328,"date":"2011-07-19T19:44:29","date_gmt":"2011-07-19T19:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=11328"},"modified":"2011-07-19T19:44:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T19:44:29","slug":"more-on-the-vmware-fiasco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=11328","title":{"rendered":"More on the VMware Fiasco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to Kristian Nese for the tweet\/heads up.  There\u2019s a thread on VMware\u2019s forums that is currently at 49 pages of VMware customers ranting about the eventual huge price increase<\/a>.  <\/p>\n

I did have someone criticise my pricing of VMware in my last post<\/a> on the subject.  I chose 4 copies of vSphere 5 Enterprise Plus  to license a 2 CPU server with 192 GB RAM, costing $13,980 to license your virtualisation for that hardware.  The criticism was that I should have used 8 copies of vSphere 5 Standard instead.  That\u2019s kind of tough to do.  Microsoft and VMware mix and match features differently.  For example DRS.  VMware put it in their vSphere package.  Hyper-V does not have DRS but SCVMM 2012 provides it under a different name.  You\u2019ll also find the same is true of Distributed Power Management.  My previous comparison included System Center Management Suite, which by the way provides upgrade rights (like a built-in software assurance).  vSphere 5 Standard does not include DRS or Distributed Power Management.<\/p>\n

Many VMware folks fail to remember that ESXi = Hyper-V, vSphere = Hyper-V + System Center (but the MSFT option is cheaper to buy and own).  Hyper-V + System Center is much<\/em> more than vSphere Standard.<\/p>\n

Anyway, to keep people happy \u2026 a copy of vSphere Standard costs $995:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Product<\/u><\/strong><\/td>\nMicrosoft<\/u><\/strong><\/td>\nVMware<\/u><\/strong><\/td>\nComment<\/u><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Virtualisation<\/td>\nFree<\/td>\n8 * vSphere 5 Standard Plus $7,960<\/td>\nHyper-V is included in Windows licensing so it\u2019s free. The Microsoft option is already $7,960 ahead.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Windows for unlimited VMs<\/td>\n\n

2 * Windows Server DC
$5,998<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2 * Windows Server DC
$5,998<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

This applies to anyone on any virtualisation platform.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Monitoring<\/td>\n\n

System Center Management Suite DC
$5,240<\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

vCenter Operations (25 VM pack) * 2<\/p>\n

$7,564<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

Not a good comparison: MSFT option includes licensing to use all of Microsoft\u2019s System Center products and it\u2019s still around 1\/3 cheaper!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/td>\n$11,238<\/strong><\/td>\n$21,522<\/strong><\/td>\nNow the MSFT option is only 52% of the cost of the VMware option, but thanks to System Center 2012, MSFT has some of those \u201ccritical\u201d virtualisation features like power optimisation and DRS not in this vSphere 5 option.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

To be fair, one could monitor that VMware server and it\u2019s VMs using System Center Operations Manager.  Given the density, a SMSD license (as in the VMware option) could be used to limit costs.  However, a 3rd party management pack from Veeam (which looks excellent) or Quest (which I have not seen) would have to be purchased to enable VMware virtualisation monitoring.  Then you could dump vCenter Operations.  I reckon that would cost around $6,200 (including 3rd party management pack), saving around $1,300 from the VMware column.<\/p>\n

I got a very interesting email overnight.  The author (thanks by the way) said:<\/p>\n

Renata Budko, vp marketing at HyTrust: \u201cWith vSphere 5.0 new licensing model, VMware is trying to capture a larger portion of the value, particularly from the customers who are reaping the benefits of virtualization with aggressive consolidation ratios of 10:1 or higher. The new model will put more emphasis on right-sizing the virtual machines and just in time provisioning.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So here\u2019s the message:<\/p>\n