VMware Finally Lifts the Lid on vSphere 5.0

[andrew-virtusolve]

VMware have today announced the full details around ESXi 5.0,

There are oodles of bits of information around the web, but I'll be updating the CONFIRMED major differences in vSphere 5.0 on our Blog as soon as we have the write up completed and checked against material already officially in the public domain.

I expect plenty of this information will be around the web over the next few days anyway!

Virtusolve Blog

Quickie Headlines:

No ESX, The Service Console is Dead - as expected, only ESXi - so you better start learning the vCLI commands you've been avoiding!
HA has been completely re-architected, Virtual Geek's Blog Post on this has some details here
VMFS v5 - again Virtual Geek has this covered

[FN-GM]

Oo thanks, does anyone know when this will be release please?

Thanks

[andrew-virtusolve]

GA (General Availability) Dates are not available yet and VMware never announces them until they are rock solid - they have learnt from other bigger companies constantly slipping.

vSphere 4.0 was GA about 8 weeks after this kind of announcement last time and VMworld 2011 is August 29th-September 1st in Las Vegas, so put 2+2 together if you dare...

[Sylv3r]

We've just finished installing vSphere 4 today!!

I take it this is a paid for upgrade and not part of our 12 month support subscription?

[andrew-virtusolve]

We've just finished installing vSphere 4 today!!

I take it this is a paid for upgrade and not part of our 12 month support subscription?

If you have support with your licenses (on the GA date) you will be entitled to an upgrade, am just covering licensing in the latest blog post, but to steal a march on that look here:

Licensing for VMware vSphere: Upgrading from VMware vSphere 4

[Sylv3r]

If you have support with your licenses (on the GA date) you will be entitled to an upgrade, am just covering licensing in the latest blog post, but to steal a march on that look here:

Licensing for VMware vSphere: Upgrading from VMware vSphere 4

Great, thanks. We have support through until 26th June 2012 - so we should be good to go.

[Arthur]

I don't like the new vRAM licensing system: http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf

128GB of vRAM = 4 x vSphere Enterprise licenses. That's $11,500 (£7,215.46) before any kind of EDU discount!

[andrew-virtusolve]

Yep, by far the biggest response on the blog so far is comments on Pooled RAM Entitlements under the new licensing method, but it was inevitable really. Processors are halving in number and a licensing method centered on them will do nothing but decline - I suspect some people will miss the point on understanding this (Arthur clearly has understood it), but it basically means you are potentially restricted on the amount of allocated vRAM in your VMware environment. I wouldn't worry too much though, with EDU licensing combined with the Accelerator or Essentials Kits its still a steal!

[pete]

There's a lot of people (in non-edu) annoyed by the licensing change. Microsoft and Citrix have clearly been sacrificing to the right dark gods.

And how on earth 32GB counts as "enterprise" these days, I don't know - who builds a production virtual host in 2011 with less than 32GB?

It does mean XenServer should get a bit more polish to attract ex-VMware customers though, which is good news for me.

[bio]

well...just finished VCP 4 a while ago seems like the lifespan of a VMware product shortens

bio..

[gshaw]

Does this mean licensing changes as you upgrade or just for new customers?

We've got 3 hosts, 36GB RAM on each and dual quad CPU with Essentials Plus... so I'd guess in theory we should be OK as to hit the 144GB vRAM limit over 3 hosts I'd have to seriously oversubscribe on the RAM on each if I work on the logic that there's 18GB physical RAM \ CPU available all things being equal?

[Arthur]

Calculate vSphere 5 Licenses with Powershell.

$vCenterServerName = "MyVC1.domain.local", "myVC2.domain.local" # Enter your vCenter server name here. In case of multiple vCenter servers, separate using a comma.

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

# Connect to vCenter(s)
Write-Host "Connecting..."
$VC = Connect-VIServer $vCenterServerName

Write-Host "Counting physical cpu's and vRAM in your environment. Please be patient..."
# Gather information
$pCpu = (Get-VMHost | Get-View | Select -ExpandProperty Hardware | Select -ExpandProperty CpuInfo | Measure-Object -Property NumCpuPackages -Sum).Sum
$vRAM = [Math]::Round((Get-VM | Where {$_.PowerState -eq "PoweredOn"} | Measure-Object -Property MemoryMB -Sum).Sum/1024,0)
Write-Host "======"
"pCpu Count: {0}" -f $pCpu
"vRAM (GB):  {0}" -f $vRAM
Write-Host "======"
# Disconnect
Disconnect-VIServer $vCenterServerName -Confirm:$false

# Calculate required licenses
$licCol = @()
$licObj = "" | Select Edition, Entitlement, Licenses
$licObj.Edition = "Essentials/Essentials Plus/Standard"
$licObj.Entitlement = "1 pCpu + 24 GB vRAM"
If (($vRAM/24) -gt $pCpu)
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} pCpu overhead" -f [Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/24), ([Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/24) - $pCpu)
}
Else
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} GB vRAM overhead" -f $pCpu, ((24 * $pCpu) - $vRAM)
}
$licCol += $licObj
$licObj = "" | Select Edition, Entitlement, Licenses
$licObj.Edition = "Enterprise"
$licObj.Entitlement = "1 pCpu + 32 GB vRAM"
If (($vRAM/32) -gt $pCpu)
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} pCpu overhead" -f [Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/32), ([Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/32) - $pCpu)
}
Else
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} GB vRAM overhead" -f $pCpu, ((32 * $pCpu) - $vRAM)
}
$licCol += $licObj
$licObj = "" | Select Edition, Entitlement, Licenses
$licObj.Edition = "Enterprise Plus"
$licObj.Entitlement = "1 pCpu + 48 GB vRAM"
If (($vRAM/48) -gt $pCpu)
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} pCpu overhead" -f [Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/48), ([Math]::Ceiling($vRAM/48) - $pCpu)
}
Else
{
	$licObj.Licenses = "{0} with {1} GB vRAM overhead" -f $pCpu, ((48 * $pCpu) - $vRAM)
}
$licCol += $licObj
# Displaying output
Write-Host "Resulting license options:"
$licCol
Write-Host "======"
Write-Host "NOTE: vRAM only counts memory allocated to vm's that are POWERED ON." -ForegroundColor Red 
Write-Host "NOTE: Please double check the results of this script, since hosts may have been omitted due to errors." -ForegroundColor Red 
Write-Host "Disclaimer: No rights can be deduced from this calculation." -ForegroundColor Red
Write-Host "======"

[Theblacksheep]

There's a lot of people (in non-edu) annoyed by the licensing change. Microsoft and Citrix have clearly been sacrificing to the right dark gods.

And how on earth 32GB counts as "enterprise" these days, I don't know - who builds a production virtual host in 2011 with less than 32GB?

Do "enterprise" servers only come with one CPU socket?

Two sockets would mean double the pool vram available. 64gb limit or 96gb with 'enterprise plus' licence on two socket systems.

[gshaw]

The posts I've seen so far suggest those enterprise customers are on 128GB+ per host and bearing in mind it's virtual RAM assigned to VMs rather than the physical total per machine.

One can only imagine the party going on in Microsoft's Hyper-V department just about now, it's probably the best bit of marketing and reason to switch from VMware to Hyper-V they've ever had!

[CyberNerd]

can someone recommend me a vsphere licensing reseller (who I can talk to re licensing) please

/hijack