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VMWare's new Licensing Fees Changes Focus on High Core-Count CPUs

So VMWare is supposedly targeting AMD's high-level server CPUs with their new licensing fees according to a Tom's Hardware article here. VMWare themselves have acknowledged the licensing changes in their news updates section although they've not mentioned AMD or any other company by name. Been seeing a lot of people theorizing that Intel tossed a lot of money at VMWare to do this seeing as how it seemingly doesn't touch Intel CPUs yet. Don't personally believe this to be the case but I've been proven wrong before. One way or another though, this is definitely going shake things up considering how widespread VMWare Workstation and it's parent company Dell is in the industry coupled with the shifting trends towards higher core counts. Interested in hearing other people's input on the matter though.

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3 minutes ago, Balkan said:

So VMWare is supposedly targeting AMD's high-level server CPUs with their new licensing fees according to a Tom's Hardware article here. VMWare themselves have acknowledged the licensing changes in their news updates section although they've not mentioned AMD or any other company by name. Been seeing a lot of people theorizing that Intel tossed a lot of money at VMWare to do this seeing as how it seemingly doesn't touch Intel CPUs yet. Don't personally believe this to be the case but I've been proven wrong before. One way or another though, this is definitely going shake things up considering how widespread VMWare Workstation and it's parent company Dell is in the industry coupled with the shifting trends towards higher core counts. Interested in hearing other people's input on the matter though.

what?

✨FNIGE✨

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Intel: Hey, Dell. 

Dell: You got it, boss. 

VMware: You got it, boss. 

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1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Intel: Hey, Dell. 

Dell: You got it, boss. 

VMware: You got it, boss. 

Lol. Intel's definitely going to be affected by this when they launch their Cooper Lake CPUs though. Just for now it seems AMD's the only one really affected by this change.

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2 minutes ago, Arika S said:

saw the thread title and immediately knew there would be someone to say "it's intel's fault".....

As long as I meet/exceed your expectations. 

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1 hour ago, Balkan said:

Been seeing a lot of people theorizing that Intel tossed a lot of money at VMWare to do this seeing as how it seemingly doesn't touch Intel CPUs yet.

 

The article doesnt state that it targets only AMD, it says CPU's over 32 cores. Intel have 48/56 core CPU's in it's Platinum line, so it's also affected. But its more so that its higher core chips are AP not GP, so they arent really utilised by DC's for VMware compute. 

 

Quote

Today we announced an important update to our per-CPU pricing model, reflecting our commitment to continue meeting our customers’ needs in an evolving industry landscape. This new pricing model will give our customers greater choice and allow us to better serve them. While we will still be using a per-CPU approach, now, for any software offering that we license on a per-CPU basis, we will require one license for up to 32 physical cores. If a CPU has more than 32 cores, additional CPU licenses will be required. "

 

 

Quote

One way or another though, this is definitely going shake things up considering how widespread VMWare Workstation

 

Not sure what this has to do with it? The article is referring to ESXi, VMware Workstation is a per computer licensing, not a per socket. 

Currently I manage 15 vCenter environments, but they do not have CPU's above 28-core so none of our licensing will be affected for now, but this is gonna shake it up for future upgrades (we have 1 cluster still on Opterons that will soon be up for a refresh). 

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Just now, Jarsky said:

Currently I manage 15 vCenter environments, but they do not have CPU's above 28-core so none of our licensing will be affected for now, but this is gonna shake it up for future upgrades (we have 1 cluster still on Opterons that will soon be up for a refresh). 

Same here, not impacted... yet. Luckily we get academic pricing anyway so maybe it won't hurt at all... maybe.

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19 minutes ago, Arika S said:

saw the thread title and immediately knew there would be someone to say "it's intel's fault".....

Obviously Intel has nothing to do with this.  Clearly It is  Nvidia trying to flank AMD's revenue without raising suspicion.

Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge.  Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding.  

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11 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Obviously Intel has nothing to do with this.  Clearly It is  Nvidia trying to flank AMD's revenue without raising suspicion.

Oh please.   Obviously the Chinese backed Via so they could do the payoff.  :P 

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8 minutes ago, justpoet said:

Oh please.   Obviously the Chinese backed Via so they could do the payoff.  :P 

How could i have been so blind, of course.   I wouldn't be at all surprised to find bill gates under all this trying to control population growth as well.

Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge.  Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding.  

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3 hours ago, SlimyPython said:

what?

more cores = more money you have to pay to use them in vmware

Microsoft does the same thing and look where it got them, most of the Internet's servers don't run windows...

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1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

XCP-NG, done....

You need Xen Orchestra for a comparable hosting platform compared to even basic license levels of VMware so you may as well pay money to the one with the most mature and complete product set. Xen Orchestra is way cheaper in really large deployments but VMware Essentials Plus is cheaper for the same features.

 

If you need other VMware product capabilities like VMware SRM then getting similar from any other market option is way harder and more time required.

 

I'd rather go with OpenStack in a situation where I wouldn't use VMware.

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2 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

Microsoft does the same thing and look where it got them, most of the Internet's servers don't run windows...

That had no effect on that because it wasn't a thing before that license model change, Windows has never been dominate for web hosting and other internet services. Microsoft milks more than enough money out of their licenses from corporate customers and their internal network servers.

 

image.thumb.png.43a266297fe0996404725ac6f0fa08da.png

 

Just do the math on something as simple as 10 20 core SQL servers, then add on the number of CALs per user on the network. Microsoft's printing press is doing just fine ?. That's before even looking at Azure costs.

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2 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

more cores = more money you have to pay to use them in vmware

Microsoft does the same thing and look where it got them, most of the Internet's servers don't run windows...

https://www.statista.com/statistics/915085/global-server-share-by-os/

 

Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge.  Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding.  

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3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

you do know that you require an account to see this, and that's like $700 a year, i could spend that on a new computer instead and probably get more use out of it.

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3 minutes ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

you do know that you require an account to see this, and that's like $700 a year, i could spend that on a new computer instead and probably get more use out of it.

They actually offered me an account for free a while back, was too lazy to bother. Sometimes I wish I did. It's a totally useless stat anyway, like does the hypervisor running on every server count? Other vendor virtual appliances that are Linux or BSD under the hood?

 

Useless stat #1

Spoiler

IDC2019ServerOS_Figure2.png?itok=izrm-r-

 

Useless Stat #2

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IDC2019ServerOS_Figure1.png?itok=yEtDsz9

 

Seems like free is really popular. 

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2 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

more cores = more money you have to pay to use them in vmware

Microsoft does the same thing and look where it got them, most of the Internet's servers don't run windows...

thanks, the formatting just killed my brain.

✨FNIGE✨

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1 hour ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

you do know that you require an account to see this, and that's like $700 a year, i could spend that on a new computer instead and probably get more use out of it.

According to statistica  MS has about 73% server market share,  even if we assume it is only half right and they only have 35% I doubt the licenses per core has shrunk their business.sales more than there being better options has.

Grammar and spelling is not indicative of intelligence/knowledge.  Not having the same opinion does not always mean lack of understanding.  

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IBM has done the same thing for some services, even when the software runs on their own POWER servers.

As we get more cores per CPU, the old socket licensing model doesn't make much sense for these companies. If your customers move from let's say two 16 core sockets to a single 32 core socket then you lose half your revenue. Of course they will change the model so that they continue making the same amount of money (or more).

And as other people have already pointed out, this will affect Intel too since they also have high core count CPUs.

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if you were aware of the happenings in the server market this was a change coming miles away. Honestly i expected worse, that they would change the fees to a per core count model, but they just change to two license per 32+ cores on a cpu.

this is one of the greatest thing that has happened to me recently, and it happened on this forum, those involved have my eternal gratitude http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/198850-update-alex-got-his-moto-g2-lets-get-a-moto-g-for-alexgoeshigh-unofficial/ :')

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4 hours ago, leadeater said:

That had no effect on that because it wasn't a thing before that license model change, Windows has never been dominate for web hosting and other internet services. Microsoft milks more than enough money out of their licenses from corporate customers and their internal network servers.

 

-snip-

 

Just do the math on something as simple as 10 20 core SQL servers, then add on the number of CALs per user on the network. Microsoft's printing press is doing just fine ?. That's before even looking at Azure costs.

Microsoft FY20 Q2 net income $11.6b... yeah I think they're doing just fine.

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5 hours ago, leadeater said:

That had no effect on that because it wasn't a thing before that license model change, Windows has never been dominate for web hosting and other internet services. Microsoft milks more than enough money out of their licenses from corporate customers and their internal network servers.

 

image.thumb.png.43a266297fe0996404725ac6f0fa08da.png

 

Just do the math on something as simple as 10 20 core SQL servers, then add on the number of CALs per user on the network. Microsoft's printing press is doing just fine ?. That's before even looking at Azure costs.

I was sure somebody, at some point, would bring up SQL Server licensing haha. To be honest, even if it does not cost as much, normal Windows Server licensing model is kind of whack too. I haven't checked 2019 licensing but it's probably the same thing as 2016. You buy 2 core packs until you cover all your cpu(s) for 2 vms then you multiply these core packs for the total number of vms you need.

Honestly it costs a crap ton of money to get a local infrastructure up and running these days. Between the physical hardware, VMWare, Windows Server, Veeam, Exchange and SQL to name a few. The numbers add up quickly. That's the main reason why our company decided to focus primarily on AWS and Azure and mostly part ways with local infrastructures deployment. We deal with SMBs mainly and I haven't had a single case in the last 2 years where it was making sense to deploy a local setup over a Cloud one except in remote areas where we can't trust the Internet reliability / have redundancy available.

One of the problem with deploying local infrastructure today in my opinion, at least in my sector, is the huge upfront cost the customer need to pay. I just dug out a random quotation I did on a whim for a 30 employees~ company 3 years ago. Nothing fancy, 4-6 vms + exchange iirc, To get them up and running, just in hardware and software (I don't even add our consultation fees, installation, migration, etc.), we were looking at 30k CAD$. I did not even include VMWare in it because the customer wanted to use Hyper-V but it would have been an another couple of thousands just to add VMWare in the mix.

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