vsphere v5 licensing
TRANSCRIPT
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VMwarevSphere 5.0Licensing,PricingandPackaging
W H I T E P A P E R
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VMware vSphere 5.0
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 3VMware vSphere Licensing Overview 3
Why a Change was Necessary 3
VMware vSphere 5.0 Licensing: Per-Processor with Pooled
vRAM Entitlements 3
Licensing Unit: Per Processor (CPU) 3
No Limits on Physical Resources 4
vRAM Entitlement 4
Pooled vRAM Capacity 4
Increasing the Pooled vRAM Capacity 4
Monitoring o Pooled vRAM Capacity 4
Benefts o vSphere 5.0 Licensing 4
License Management 5
Centralized Licensing with No Single Point o Failure 5
Decentralized Licensing Option 5
VMware vSphere and vCenter Server Packaging 7
vSphere Editions 7
vCenter Server Editions 8
vSphere Kits 8
Upgrade Entitlements or Existing Customers 9Upgrading Between vSphere 5.0 Editions 10
FAQ 10
How to Buy 11
Learn More 11
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VMware vSphere 5.0
SnS is required or all vSphere purchases.
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VMware vSphere 5.0
Executive SummaryVMware vSphere is the industry-leading virtualization platorm or
building cloud inrastructures vSphere accelerates the shit to cloudcomputing or existing datacenters It also underpins compatible
public cloud oerings, paving the way or the industrys only hybrid
cloud model
With the introduction o VMware vSphere 5, VMware is evolving
the products licensing model to give customers the opportunity
to move to a more cloud-like, pay or consumption approach
to IT The changes lay the oundation or a more modern IT cost
model that is based on consumption and value rather than
components and capacity
vSphere has made it possible or customers to maximize hardware
utilization and eciency through pooling With these licensing
changes, VMware is extending this concept rom technology to the
business o IT The new vSphere licensing model eliminates therestrictive physical entitlements o CPU cores and physical RAM
per server, replacing them with a single virtualization-based
entitlement o pooled virtual memory (vRAM) This will simpliy
the process o purchasing deploying and managing vSphere while
acilitating the move to shared inrastructure as a service
The vSphere 50 licensing model is per processor (CPU) with
pooled vRAM entitlements It oers customers the ollowing
benets relative to the previous vSphere 4x model:
Simplicity Removes two physical constraints (core and
physical RAM), replacing them with a single virtual entitlement
(vRAM) Customers now have a clear path to license vSphere
on next-generation hardware congurationsFlexibility Extends the concept o resource pooling rom
technology to the business o IT by allowing aggregation and
sharing o vRAM entitlement across a large pool o servers
Fairness Better aligns cost with actual use and value derived,
rather than with hardware congurations and capacity
Evolution Allows customers to evolve to a cloud-like pay or
consumption model without disrupting established purchasing,
deployment and license-management practices and processes
VMware vSphere Licensing
OverviewThe licensing model or vSphere 50 is designed to simpliy and
optimize the purchasing, deployment and support experience
or all customers
Why a Change was Necessary
With the modiication to vSphere licensing, we accomplish
two objectives:
Free customers rom restrictive hardware-based entitlements
Align the vSphere licensing model with IT as a service
To understand reasons or the change, we should rst examine the
legacy vSphere model vSphere 4x is licensed on a per-physical-
processor (CPU) basis with limits on:
The number o physical cores per CPUPhysical RAM capacity per server
Signicant innovations in hardware designsuch as CPUs with
ever-larger number o cores, high-density memory chips, solid-
state drives and hyperthreadingwere causing the hardware
limits in vSphere 4x licensing to become outdated In the 36
months since the release o vSphere 40, multicore capacity
o x86 CPUs grew rom 4 cores per CPU to 8 per CPU
Processor manuacturers have announced plans to introduce
CPUs that will exceed cores CPU manuacturers have
introduced or plan to introduce technologiessuch as
hyperthreadingthat work at the subcore level and increase
processing power by improving parallelization o computations
Similar growth and innovation trends are also happening on thememory side, with RAM chip density growing rom 4GB per
DIMM to 8GB and 6GB per DIMM and new types o memory
technologiessuch as solid-state-drive (SSD)becoming
mainstream This innovation trend in server hardware technologies
is rapidly making the hardware restrictions o vSphere 4x licenses
outdated posing diculties or customers to plan uture
investments in inrastructure and virtualization
Moreover, vSphere 4x licensing did not refect the act that
vSphere excels at pooling physical hardware resources across
the entire datacenter and presenting them as a single, unied,
shared inrastructurean innovation that is one o the core pillars
o cloud inrastructure The hardware-based licensing model o
vSphere 4x made it dicult or customers to transition to theusage-based cost and chargeback models that characterize
cloud computing and IT-as-a-Service
VMware vSphere 5.0 Licensing: Per-Processorwith Pooled vRAM Entitlements
vSphere 50 will be licensed on a per-processor basis with a
vRAM entitlement Each vSphere 50 CPU license will entitle the
purchaser to a specic amount o vRAM, or memory congured
to virtual machines The vRAM entitlement can be pooled across
a vSphere environment to enable a true c loud or utility based
IT consumption model Just like VMware technology oers
customers an evolutionary path rom the traditional datacenter
to cloud inrastructure, the vSphere 50 licensing model allows
customers to evolve to a cloud-like pay or consumption model
without disrupting established purchasing, deployment and license-
management practices and processes
Licensing Unit: Per Processor (CPU)
vSphere 50 is still licensed on a per-processor basis, allowing
customers to continue leveraging established purchasing,
deployment and license-management processes
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VMware vSphere 5.0
SnS is required or all vSphere purchases.
The pooling o vRAM makes vSphere 50 licensing extremely
fexible and can reduce the number o required vSphere licenses
because vRAM entitlements can be shared among multiple
hosts There are no restrictions on how vRAM is consumed
across virtual machines and CPUs At any given point in time,
the amount o vRAM consumed by active virtual machines on
a CPU could exceed the base entitlement o the vSphere 50
license assigned to that CPU As long as the total consumed
vRAM across all virtual machines managed by a VMware vCenter
instance or multiple linked VMware vCenter instances is less or
equal to the total available vRAM, vSphere is correctly licensed
Increasing the Pooled vRAM Capacity
I necessary, the easiest way to expand pooled vRAM capacity
is to add more vSphere CPU licenses o the same edition to
the vRAM pool Alternatively, customers can upgrade all CPU
licenses in the vRAM pool to a vSphere edition with a higher
base vRAM entitlement
Monitoring o Pooled vRAM Capacity
Available and consumed vRAM capacity can be monitored
and managed using the licensing-management module o
VMware vCenter Server Customers can create reports and
set up alerts to obtain automated notication o when the
level o vRAM consumption surpasses a specied level o
the available pooled capacity
Benets o vSphere 5.0 Licensing
The new vSphere 50 licensing model provides
Simplicity Removes two physical constraints (core and
physical RAM), replacing them with a single virtual entitlement
(vRAM) Customers now have a clear path to license vSphere
on next-generation hardware congurations
Flexibility Extends the concept o resource pooling rom
technology to the business o IT by allowing aggregation and
sharing o vRAM entitlement across a large pool o severs
Fairness Better aligns cost with actual use and value derived
rather than hardware congurations and capacity
Evolution Allows customers to evolve to a cloud-like pay or
consumption model without disrupting established purchasing,
deployment and license-management practices and processes
Figure shows a comparison between the vSphere 4x and
vSphere 50 licensing models
No Limits on Physical Resources
vSphere 50 licensing removes all restrictions on physical cores
and physical RAM This change eliminates barriers to deploying
vSphere on new multicore server congurations, improving
customers ability to choose server hardware that best meets
their requirements
vRAM Entitlement
We have introduced vRAM, a transerable, virtualization-based
entitlement to oer customers the greatest fexibility or vSphere
conguration and usage vRAM is dened as the virtual memory
congured to virtual machines When a virtual machine is created,
it is congured with a certain amount o virtual memory (vRAM)
available to the virtual machine Depending on the edition, each
vSphere 50-CPU license provides a certain vRAM capacity
entitlement When the virtual machine is powered on, the vRAM
congured or that virtual machine counts against the total vRAM
entitled to the user There are no restrictions on how vRAM capacity
can be distributed among virtual machines: a customer can
congure many small virtual machines or one large virtual machine
The entitled vRAM is a ungible resource congured to meet
customer workload requirements
Pooled vRAM Capacity
An important eature o the new licensing model is the concept o
pooling the vRAM capacity entitlements or all processor licenses
(see Figure ) The vRAM entitlements o vSphere CPU licenses are
pooledthat is, aggregatedacross all CPU licenses managed by
a VMware vCenter instance (or multiple linked VMware vCenter
instances) to orm a total available vRAM capacity (pooled vRAM
capacity) I workloads on one server are not using their ull vRAM
entitlement, the excess capacity can be used by other virtual
machines within the VMware vCenter instance At any given point
in time, the vRAM capacity consumed by all powered-on virtual
machines within a pool must be equal or lower than the pooled
vRAM capacity
Figure 1.vSphereBringstheBeneftsoPoolingtoLicensing
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VMware vSphere 5.0
SnS is required or all vSphere purchases.
Centralized Licensing with No Single Point o Failure
VMware vCenter Server is the recommended interace or license
assignment to vSphere hosts When a license key is assigned by
vCenter Server, it is copied to the host and saved in a persistent
ormat I the host becomes disconnected rom vCenter Server, the
license key remains active on the host indenitely, even ater a host
reboot Only a deliberate licensing operation by the user can remove
or replace a host license key
Decentralized Licensing Option
Although VMware recommends that customers assign all
vSphere licenses centrally through vCenter Server, customers
also have the option to assign their license keys directly to
individual hosts There is no dierence between directly and
centrally assigned license keys When a vSphere host is added
to the vCenter Server inventory, any license key already on the
host will become available or management, reporting and
assignment in vCenter Server, just like any license key added
directly via vCenter Server For more inormation on vSpherelicensing, visit http://wwwvmwarecom/support/licensing
Licensing Example
In this section we will go over the key elements o vSphere 50
licensing using an example
Creating the vRAM Pool
For this example, a user has two -CPU hosts that they wish to
license with vSphere Enterprise edition Note that the vRAM
entitlement or vSphere Enterprise is 3GB per CPU Each physical
CPU requires a license, so a minimum o our vSphere Enterprise
licenses are required More licenses will be required i the user needs
to use more vRAM than the 4 x 3GB = 8GB o vRAM that isentitled with the our licenses So ar the user has yet to create any
virtual machines, so 8GB o vRAM is more than adequate In sum,
the user purchases and deploys our licenses o vSphere Enterprise,
yielding a vRAM capacity o 8GB o vRAM
Hosts
CPUs 4
VMware vSphere licenses 4
vRAM capacity 8GB (4 licenses x 3GB/license)
vRAM used 0GB
License Management
vSphere 50 licenses are still simple license keys (5-characteralphanumeric strings) that contain encrypted inormation about
the vSphere edition or kit purchased and the processor quantity
These license keys do not contain any server-specic inormation
and are not tied to a specic piece o hardware This means that
the same license key can be assigned to multiple vSphere hosts,
as long as the sum o physical processors on those hosts does
not exceed the encoded processor quantity in the license key
Figure 2.vSphere4xvsvSphereLicensingComparison
Licensing Unit
Core per proc
SnS Unit
Physical RAM
Capacity per host
Compliance
policies
Pooling ofentitlements
Monitoring tool
vRAM Capacity
per proc
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