Plain Virtualization

VMware vSAN is a Hyper-Converge Infrastructure solution which is part of VMware Cloud Foundation  (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) bundling.  While VMware vSAN helps customer to achieve a SAN like storage pooling using local HDD on each server together, it is still limited on features it encompasses in comparison to a physical SAN. This is where NetApp ONTAP Select which will complement the missing gap. ONTAP Select is the virtual appliance of the well known ONTAP that runs on all NetApp Unified Storage appliance. One of the major function that ONTAP Select brings to vSAN is on Data management and Protection. This is very useful for protection specific applications especially application aware application by ONTAP Select. Some of the enterprise applications supported can be found here . A detailed kb from Broadcom can be found  here . With ONTAP Select, these applications that are supported can be protected via SnapMirror which can provide an application consiste...

As mentioned in this article , VMware has release vSphere Enterprise Plus edition offering and I think this is a great add-on having it got removed after end of perpetual offering. Though the Standard and Essential is good enough but there are many cases where vSphere Enterprise Plus is needed yet only made available in VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) or VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) which customer have to purchase just to use the vSphere Edition in it. Further on, the vSAN entitlement for VVF is also increased from 100GiB to 250GiB. This definitely make the usage of vSAN much more appealing in VVF. As I have create a calculator previously here , I have updated to include the 250GiB per core in VVF. I have not added any for vSphere Enterprise Plus since it can be used with the existing vSphere Standard since there is not special limitation for the new offering. Just to note the previous KB preferred to on the license entitlement for vSAN is however, not updated at the time of writing....

The Truth Yes, the news of VMware acquired by Broadcom has come to a realization. We cannot denied the truth since 22nd Nov 2023. Prior the acquisition, if you have made a multi-year purchase before that, you will have whatever you can consume after the acquisition. VMware after the acquisition has release new bundle of all their offerings and end the perpetual licensing offer to the market. The individual products are not make available and cannot be purchase as a standalone. But are offered via two bundle namely; VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF), VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). Both of which are all subscription licenses. It also ends all sales and renewal of any perpetual licenses. Honestly, VMware has been trying to end its perpetual license and into subscription for the longest time. With the Broadcom acquisition, VMware has been one of the last major player that has moved to subscription license. Customer who are on VMware, has been enjoying the great pricing with no limit of cores...

VMware has been trying to transit to subscription licensing for a long time which what all other software companies have already done. With Broadcom acquisition, the perpetual licensing availability is no longer available as announced  here and a KB on this. There is a good blog article that just got release to show where each product packaging is replaced with. There are just some things I like to highlight. vCenter Server is no longer available as it is no longer selling as a standalone product but it comes free as part of the new subscription licensing. Another item, vCloud Director, which will only be available to Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and not to end user which this article is addressing to. Many might say that why is VMware by Broadcom removing the perpetual licensing. Let's take a moment, it has been a long overdue move that just got accelerated. In fact, if not all, software companies such as Microsoft, Citrix, etc. are all on subscriptions and VMware has been one ...

With the new SKU release in simplifying customer purchase, there are certain guideline in place in purchasing the different license SKU.  To help architects from partners and also end user, I have created this simple calculator for ease of sizing the license needed. Do note this is accurate at time of publishing and there might be changes. Here is the link to VMware License Calculator. Feel free to leave me any comments below. Update 13th Feb 2024 The minimum requirement for vSAN Add-on has been removed. There is no longer a 8TiB per CPU requirement as updated on KB .

After the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, there has been announcement on simplifying the way VMware software licensing will work. That was a very bold step to really help customers. There maybe lots of comments over it, but if you have never been into an architecture discussion and having to also coming out a licensing strategy, you might not appreciate this change. In additional, in totality, customer will find that the cost might just be much affordable than before. Contact your VMware Account Manager to find out more. So let's go back to the present. Existing customer who might have renewal ending and would definitely need to know how much license they would need to procure. The well known William Lam, definitely not leaving VM Admin challenges. He has created a PowerCLI script to help customer pull out those needed information to help existing brownfield customers forward.  Next to help understand what are the new criteria needed to purchase the new license, this is a kb ...