Tuesday, February 4th 2020
VMWare Updates Licensing Model, Setting 32-Core Limit per License
VMWare, one of the most popular virtualization solutions commercially available for businesses and the industry in general, has announced changes to its licensing model. From now on, licensees will have to acquire a license per 32 CPU cores, instead of the former "per socket" model. This effectively means that users who had made a migration to AMD's 64-core EPYC CPUs, for instance, and who saved on both price-per core and VMWare licensing fees compared to Intel customers (who would need two sockets to achieve the same core-count, and thus, two licenses) are now being charged for two licenses for a 64-core, AMD-populated socket. This was a selling point for AMD - the company stated that their high-end EPYC processors could act as a dual-socket setup with a single processor, thanks to EPYC's I/O capabilities and core counts. VMWare claims this change is in line with industry standard pricing models.
Of course this decision from VMWare hits AMD the hardest, and it comes at a time where there are already 48 and 64 core CPUs available in the market. Should this licensing change be done, perhaps it should be in line with the current state of the industry, and not following in a quasi-random core-count (it definitely isn't random, though, and I'll leave it at that). From VMware's perspective, AMD's humongous CPU core counts does affect their bottom line. The official release claiming customers license software based on CPU counts may be valid, and they do allow for free licenses for servers past 32 cores until April 30, 2020. Of course, VMWare is also preparing itself for future industry changes - Intel will obviously increase its core counts in response to AMD's EPYC attack on the expected core counts of professional applications.
Source:
VMware
Of course this decision from VMWare hits AMD the hardest, and it comes at a time where there are already 48 and 64 core CPUs available in the market. Should this licensing change be done, perhaps it should be in line with the current state of the industry, and not following in a quasi-random core-count (it definitely isn't random, though, and I'll leave it at that). From VMware's perspective, AMD's humongous CPU core counts does affect their bottom line. The official release claiming customers license software based on CPU counts may be valid, and they do allow for free licenses for servers past 32 cores until April 30, 2020. Of course, VMWare is also preparing itself for future industry changes - Intel will obviously increase its core counts in response to AMD's EPYC attack on the expected core counts of professional applications.
83 Comments on VMWare Updates Licensing Model, Setting 32-Core Limit per License
"VMWare considers AMD broke its licensing model with this move, and the fact that AMD"
you should loom at oracles licensing costs.
lest we forget AMDs usage in the DC space is virtually non existent
Last time I checked: ~75% market share.Suspicious? Because VMware wants to remain profitable? Get a grip. World doesn't revolve around cheering or attacking AMD.
Core density in sockets went up lately. VMware uses a per-socket licensing. If in 2020 we're getting twice as many cores per socket as we did few years ago, they have to react somehow.
They could either do this or drastically raise the fee itself. This was a much easier approach, but more importantly: much better for their customers.
THE FACT THAT AMD WHAT?! o_O
We use VMWare at work and I had a mess about with it at home. Until it went to the crappy web based model, it was great. Now it's kinda meh but it's a very powerful meh tool now I guess....
And no: VMware did not increase their license price. They slightly changed the pricing model.
If you have a VMware set up on a <=32 core CPU, nothing changes.
In fact, if you already use a >32 core CPU, they'll give you a free license for the surplus cores. So this will only affect new systems.
Although, with some further thought, it was probably less complicated to just do this and sacrifice the small companies than figure out some other method to differentiate between companies with one socket and those with 100.
VMWare is not changing the basic per socket licensing model as long as that single socket has a CPU with 32 cores or less in it.
Is it a step back ? Sure, but it's for everyone, what I actually find suspicions is how Intel did not step in and try to prevent this. VMWare is being slightly obtuse here, they're thinking that this is a move to ensure more profits in the future but at the same time this may very well be a death sentence because this literally works in the detriment of everyone.
Seriously, if you think about this for 30 seconds, you should notice this is the most client-friendly path they could take.
Yes they do. They charge per 32 core sets and per socket, as shown in the picture below.Nevermind, I misunderstood. The picture is still valid, though.Do you understand how the license fee is calculated? Seriously, give it a thought.
nothing in the original VMware statement mentions this, seems to me like an invented quote from oc3d and blindly copy'pasted.
Additionally, now anyone who has a > 32 thread CPU now has to buy another license. This will definitely grab more money now and in the future. If I was a prospective customer (I'm not because I got mine free), I would be searching for a different alternative.