VMware Subscription

[chris11256]

We've got our VMware support renewal coming up and are facing the move to the subscription pricing. Has anyone else gone through this yet or seen any pricing? We currently have vSphere 8 Essentials Plus along with vCenter Server 8 Essentials and only paid about £400 or so a year in support costs, so am slightly dreading getting the renewal quote. Edited January 10, 2024 by chris11256

[Cw2k]

Ours is up for renewal in April and our resellers say they are blocked from renewing before April.

 

The pricing document going around online suggests $35 a core per year for essentials plus on a 3 year contact with a 96 core minimum. Under the new pricing it looks like vSphere standard which is $50 a core will be cheaper for some users as that doesn’t have the 96 core minimum requirement.

Edited January 11, 2024 by Cw2k

[chris11256]

Just had the call from our reseller With the 96 core minimum the subscription is £3.9K per year. Also confirmed there's no education/academic pricing anymore and they're making schools pay full commercial price.

 

We're moving to a new building next summer anyway, to choice is to migrate to hyper-v this summer on thee existing servers. Or do one final update of ESX next month before support expires, then leave it in situ to kick the can down the road,.

[Jcx500]

We got the our per socket deal for another year luckily

[PotNoodleTech]

Are you talking about the support? it shouldnt be that expensive, 400 a year odd for 4 sockets here.

[chris11256]

Tell me about it, Unfortunately our renewal is mid February, after their cut off date for perpetual support renewal. So we can only renew on their subscription options, hence the massive price hike. Edited January 15, 2024 by chris11256

[PotNoodleTech]

Tell me about it, Unfortunately our renewal is mid February, after their cut off date for perpetual support renewal. So we can only renew on their subscription options, hence the massive price hike.

 

If veeam is pricing you out might be worth looking at other options - I think Synology has got some really cool backup options now so if you happen to have any of their nas/sans that might be the way forward?

[mrbios]

Are you talking about the support? it shouldnt be that expensive, 400 a year odd for 4 sockets here.

 

I was paying £1100pa roughly for yearly renewal. Quoted over £3000 this year.

 

Time to jump ship and leave for Hyper-V.

[chris11256]

Our reseller has said(and others have confirmed) that VMware have removed education pricing as well as hiking the prices/turning to subscription.

 

Pretty hard to justify paying that on our end, so am actively considering one final patch/update of ESX before our support expires, then migrating to Hyper-V this summer. We're not doing a server refresh, so it's a slight added complication but nothing outrageous.

[free780]

There always promox,nutanix,kvm. Just make sure you pay for support.

[PotNoodleTech]

I was paying £1100pa roughly for yearly renewal. Quoted over £3000 this year.

 

Time to jump ship and leave for Hyper-V.

 

Oops my bad Sorry - I misread I thought you were talking about Veeam not Vmware.

 

Dumped VMware 10 years ago when they changed their licensing model from "affordable to education" to "only affordable to fortune 500 companies"!

[dmj]

Time to jump ship and leave for Hyper-V.

 

or not https://killedbymicrosoft.info/

[Primus]

or not https://killedbymicrosoft.info/

 

That's referring to the free version of Hyper-V Server - most schools will already be licenced for Windows Server which includes Hyper-V through their OVS-ES, EES, perpetual licences etc.

 

Microsoft are not killing off Hyper-V.

[Jcx500]

XCP-NG is a really good option if you are looking for an alternative hypervisor

[DrCheese]

I've bounced an email to my VMWare account manager today to find out the cost (I admit, partly to see if they are still there so don't get stuck come renewal!)

[Chclark]

We have this issue at the moment. The cheaper option is vsphere+ standard (Inc vcenters) been quoted around £30 a core, but still expensive compared to a support renewal.

 

Think it's time to start looking at hyper v

[pablo007]

These are the prices we have been given:

 

vSphere Essentials Plus Kit

1 year (1 kit, up to 96 cores) = £3,920

3 year (1 kit, up to 96 cores) = £8,230

 

vSphere Standard

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £57.15

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £122

 

vSphere Foundation

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £154

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £331

 

VMWare Cloud Foundation

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £400

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £857

 

Although not clear what is included in each, we currently have vSphere 8 Essentials Plus on esxi 8.0.2, so get vmotion and HA, our support agreement is until November and so i think i am ok until then although doubt i would be able to upgrade to v9 if it were to come out prior to that.

 

A conundrum for sure pay up or move to hyper V or a less well known hypervisor...

 

I've been doing a bit of digging around to see how i could move to hyper v and v2v via a free solarwinds tool looks viable. We have a two server/Host setup so should be to migrate the compute to one and flatten the other to install windows server but the storage will present an issue as of course all the current vms are on vmdatastores VMFS on our SAN, so will need to find some temp storage until everything is migrated and i can flatten them and re-present to the hyper V cluster.

 

Its been years since i've touched hyper V is it a standalone product now or do you still install the latest O/S (MS 2022) and install the hyper V feature?

[chris11256]

That's handy, does Standard have the same minimum core requirement as essentials plus?

[Aprice]

Its been years since i've touched hyper V is it a standalone product now or do you still install the latest O/S (MS 2022) and install the hyper V feature?

 

The standalone is basically going / gone. So it's the full OS now.

 

Have to say I do miss working with VMWare, never really found Hyper-V to be as solid.

 

All the chatter at the minute sounds like VMWare is trying to run itself into the ground.

[DrCheese]

These are the prices we have been given:

 

vSphere Essentials Plus Kit

1 year (1 kit, up to 96 cores) = £3,920

3 year (1 kit, up to 96 cores) = £8,230

 

vSphere Standard

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £57.15

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £122

 

vSphere Foundation

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £154

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £331

 

VMWare Cloud Foundation

1 year prepaid commit, per core = £400

3 year prepaid commit, per core = £857

 

Although not clear what is included in each, we currently have vSphere 8 Essentials Plus on esxi 8.0.2, so get vmotion and HA, our support agreement is until November and so i think i am ok until then although doubt i would be able to upgrade to v9 if it were to come out prior to that.

 

A conundrum for sure pay up or move to hyper V or a less well known hypervisor...

 

I've been doing a bit of digging around to see how i could move to hyper v and v2v via a free solarwinds tool looks viable. We have a two server/Host setup so should be to migrate the compute to one and flatten the other to install windows server but the storage will present an issue as of course all the current vms are on vmdatastores VMFS on our SAN, so will need to find some temp storage until everything is migrated and i can flatten them and re-present to the hyper V cluster.

 

Its been years since i've touched hyper V is it a standalone product now or do you still install the latest O/S (MS 2022) and install the hyper V feature?

 

 

 

Are these prices direct from VMware? If so, then essentials plus is only a little bit more than what we paid for it last year still. (Well £1500 more but still not as crazy as some prices I've seen!)

[TechMonkey]

From various threads I have seen, VMWare reps have been saying that education customers should reach out to their/an account manager as they can sort education discounts, resellers can't. Don't know how true this is or if the educational discount is worth it though. I was about to try and sell moving to VMWare to the org but have well and truly been put off. Which is a shame.

[PotNoodleTech]

The standalone is basically going / gone. So it's the full OS now.

 

Have to say I do miss working with VMWare, never really found Hyper-V to be as solid.

 

All the chatter at the minute sounds like VMWare is trying to run itself into the ground.

 

To be honest I have not really had any more down time since I moved from Vmware.

 

I do however prefer Vmware and prefer having a low impact O/S as the hypervisor layer rather than a full fat O/S.

 

But money dictates what we buy as there is preciously little to go round and can not justify spending the same ££ on server O/S as we did on our actual server hardware!!

 

If VMware sorted a legit education wing with dedicated pricing and perhaps slightly feature shaved products at lower cost they could recapture the education market again.

[pablo007]

The prices quoted are not direct from Vmware but one of our software partners. Edited February 27, 2024 by pablo007

[pablo007]

That's handy, does Standard have the same minimum core requirement as essentials plus?

Unsure i was only sent the above, sorry

[GiggleKitteh]

Part of the reason for the changes is that VMWare have been acquired by Broadcom who are changing the pricing structures.