VMware Licensing Change – Per CPU and Per Core
VMware is pushing out a change on how it licenses ESXi.
We are all familiar with the per CPU Socket model that has been in existence for some time (since the release of ESXi 1.x).
Well, now they are moving to per CPU with a max of 32-cores.
While that may not impact you right now, as CPU core counts go up, this will be something you have to deal with…maybe the next year or two.
What happens when you get a 36-core CPU? you will need 2 x CPU licenses to run ESXi on that.
Why don’t they just change their licensing to strictly be per core?
I don’t know…they didn’t ask me.
I truly believe if they want to start addressing cores, then just go straight core, and forget the CPU socket count. They already have figured out how much per core licensing would cost (~$118 or so, given the cost of ESXi Enterprise Plus per CPU socket licensing). Why not just do per core then?
With a mix of CPU socket and Core Count, I can see the nightmare coming….just like the vRAM Tax fiasco of the vSphere 5.0 release.
Remember that?
Having to do different designs for each solution to figure out the most cost effective way to deliver a mix of CPU and memory and determining how many hosts in each too.
I have no problem changing the licensing from CPU Socket to core, if that’s what you want to do.
I do have a problem with keep CPU Socket licensing, and limiting the number of cores to 32 per socket. Adding unnecessary design constraints to something in this manner will be a pain….again, not today, but next year & forward. If you run the new AMD chips (with 64-cores), you now have twice the expense to run ESXi on it…..
This happens on April 2, 2020.
Read the VMware News Post here.
Intel – another CPU vulnerability
Got another one to be aware of now.
Bob Plankers put out a post about these new vulnerabilities.
Nothing for us to do yet, as Intel hasn’t shipped a code-fix, but as long as you are patching your vSphere environment, you should be covered.
VMware on AWS – 3 year Commit – Monthly Payments
A new pricing model for VMware on AWS was announced.
Yes, you can still do on-demand.
Yes, you can still do 1 or 3 year prepay.
Now, you can commit to a 1 or 3 year contract, and pay monthly.
You still get a discount, but it will be slightly less.
If I’m reading it correctly…
on-demand is still ~$80,000 a year per host
3 year prepay is still ~$40,000 a year per host
3 year monthly is ~$46,000 a year per host
Found a post on the VMware Cloud site that covers the details….
Microsoft Pulls Back on LDAP Change Push in March 2020
No, they are not withdrawing this change.
This is being delayed until 2nd half of 2020.
This post highlights this change on 2/4/2020 in their patch.
VMware Cloud Foundation
More and more often, our designs have to incorporate a Management Cluster. You know, the 4 x ESXi Cluster where we only run infrastructure management tools like vCenter, vROPs, vRLI, NSX, vRA and such?
Well, that seemed to always be one of the reasons VCF didn’t seem to get much traction (the perceived overhead of the management cluster).
Putting this in place can make it easier to orchestrate the additional Workload domains that are going to run your actual workloads, such as VMs, VDI, or even vRA.
Cormac Hogan did a nice writeup of the process to enable VCF.
vSAN & Maintenance Mode
What happens to vSAN when a host goes into Maintenance Mode?
That’s what this post covers, and how the focus is on ensuring your data is kept resilient against failures.
The VMware Blog post is here.
vRealize Automation & OVAs
Only available in vRA 8, which is still not 100% ready for some of our vRA 7.x customers…..
Not really general OVA deployment, but Bitnami based OVAs.
Hey, its the first step, and I’m sure will be getting wider adoption sometime.
VMware Blog post is here.
Multiple vGPUs to a VM
Duncan Epping has been taking advantage of a VMware Take-3 program that lets you work in other business units for a a few months.
Giving up vSAN for a few months, he’s been spending time with virtual/augmented reality.
His recent posts have been around working with vGPU.
You should check out his blog, and see how his Take-3 is going.
VMware Flings
USB Network Driver for ESXi – great for homelabbers
….now with 9000MTU support
Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Design Bootcamp & NPX Defense Schedule
I took this course last year, and thought it was great.
Want to be challenged with doing designs everyday with a team?
No better way than to practice those skills.
Also on the same page is the NPX Defense Schedule….
Check out the dates offered for this FREE (yup, free) course.
RVTools for Nutanix?
OK, its actually called Nutanix Acropolis Inventory Collector.
Check it out here.
Nutanix Visio Stencils
Now with shape data.
This long post covers the details that must have taken days to get right for these Visio stencils. Wonder how they’d work in the OmniGraffle of LucidChart….
Nutanix – Erasure Encoding
Josh Odgers wrote up another nice post.
Here he is doing a comparison of Nutanix and vSAN, of course.
Even if you are not looking for the comparison, it is a great look at how Erasure Coding works on the Nutanix solution.
Nutanix – Scaling Storage Capacity
Josh Odgers has been busy….
ANOTHER post on the Nutanix Platform, and how adding capacity in Nutanix works, and the benefits scale up or scale out provides.
I learned something reading this one too!
Lakeside Software being bought by Insight Partners
Insight Partners bought Veeam last month, and now they are picking up Lakeside Software.
Here is the post from Insight Partners.
Here is the post from Lakeside Software.
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