Licensing Data Solutions - Blog

 

Table of Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Unpacking VMware’s New Licensing Model
    1. What is a Core?
    2. How Does VMware Define Core?
    3. Core-Based Licensing vs. Processor-Based Licensing
    4. Subscription-Based Model
    5. Minimum License Capacity (16 Cores per CPU)
    6. Calculation of Capacity Required
  3. Analysis of VCF Pricing (1-5 Years)
  4. Analysis of VVF Pricing (1-5 Years)
  5. vSAN Included With VCF and VVF Bundles
    1. What is a Tebibyte (TiB)?
    2. Difference Between TiB, GiB, TB, GB
  6. VVF and VCF With vSAN Capacity Table
  7. LDS Recommendations
  8. Conclusion
 
Introduction

Following Broadcom's acquisition, significant changes have been introduced. These include discontinuing the sale of all perpetual licenses in favor of a subscription-based model, modifications to packaging and bundling of vSphere, vSAM to VCF and VVF, and a transition from processor to core-based licensing. Collectively, these changes are forming a substantial challenge, leading to customers experiencing shocking increases in costs ranging from 5-40X their current spending. This blog will specifically concentrate on the shift from processor to core licensing and provide essential information to help you understand and mitigate the impact of this change.

Unpacking VMware’s New Licensing Model
What is Core?

A core is an individual processing unit within a Central Processing Unit (CPU). It functions as the "brain" of the CPU, receiving instructions and executing calculations or operations to fulfill those instructions. A CPU may contain multiple cores, each capable of operating independently from the others.

 

Physical server showing physical processors, physical cores, and hardware threads

How Does VMware Define Core?

“Core” means a unit of measurement that is defined based on the environment in which the Software operates:

  1. in a physical computing environment, a Core is a Physical Core;
  2. in a virtualized or hypervisor (VM) computing environment, a Core is a single physical computational unit of the Processor which may be presented as one or more vCPUs and/or
  3. in a public cloud computing environment, a Core is defined as a single physical computational unit of the Processor, which may be presented as one or more vCPUs, but may be named differently by the public cloud vendors (e.g., Amazon Web Services uses the term “vCPU”, Microsoft Azure uses the term “Core” or “vCPU”, Google Cloud Platform uses the term “Virtual CPU”, and Heroku uses the term “Compute”).
  4. In cases where Hyperthreading is not enabled, one (1) vCPU is recognized as one Core. In cases where Hyperthreading is enabled, two (2) vCPUs are recognized as one Core.

VMware, After Getting Acquired by Broadcom, Changed Its Licensing Model From Processor to Core.

Adding to the complexity, VMware has transitioned to a new licensing model based on the number of cores in a Processor rather than the previous model, which was based on the number of processors.

Let’s break down how it works:

Subscription-Based: The core-based licensing model is subscription-based “Only.” This means you pay a recurring fee to use the software, for example, on a rental basis.

Minimum License Capacity: For VVF and VCF, customers must purchase a minimum license capacity of 16 cores per CPU. This means that even if your processors each have fewer than 16 cores, you’ll pay for 16 cores anyway.

Calculation of Capacity: To calculate the capacity needed for your environment, you need the total number of physical cores for each CPU on all ESXi hosts individually in your environment and then sum it up.

Example: To illustrate, suppose you have a single ESXi host in your inventory with a single CPU that has 8 cores. In this case, you are required to buy a subscription capacity for 16 cores per CPU, as this is the least license capacity available. If you have two ESXi hosts, each with two CPUs and each CPU having 8 cores, you would require a total of 64 core licenses.

Understanding Licensing and Cost Shift from SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) to Cloud ALM (CALM)

  1. Demystifying IBM Cloud Pak and premier on Cloud PAK Licensing in 2023
  2. Comprehensive Guide to SAP Indirect Access and How to measure Digital Access in 2023
images/thumbs_images/Untitled-1-01.png images/thumbs_images/citrix-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/java-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/other-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/quest-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/redhat-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/salesforce-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/sap-bottom-01.png images/thumbs_images/vmware-bottom-1-01.png

Licensing Data Solutions

If you would like to learn about Software Compliance Data Solutions contact us today:

Address: NYC, Houston and San Francisco

Telephone: (646) 820 - 1647

Email: info@licensingdatasolutions.com

Sorry, this website uses features that your browser doesn’t support. Upgrade to a newer version of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge and you’ll be all set.