As most of you probably knows already, VMware with vSphere 5 introduce new license model. vSphere 5 will be licensed based on number of CPU sockets and vRAM. What’s exactly means for the business ? Look at below examples.
Today = vSphere 4.X
Server with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 2 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
Server with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
Tomorrow = vSphere 5.X
Server with 2 sockets and 192G of memory = 4 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
Server with 4 sockets and 256G of memory = 6 vSphere Enterprise Plus licenses
Here you can find a link with cost calculation vRAM per GB
As you can see from above examples if you want to upgrade your vSphere 4.X to vSphere5 be prepare to spend much more money for the license or start think to move from VMware platform to Citrix XENServer or RedHat KVM solution.
vSphere 5 comparison licence table
vSphere 5 Licensing, Pricing and Packaging white paper here.
vSphere license validator can be download from http://www.virtu-al.net/ , is PowerCLI script which produce HTML license report. Read information on virtu-al.net page to get more details.
Below table explains how new vSphere 4.X license will be mapped to vSphere 5 license.
| VMware vSphere 4.x Edition | VMware vSphere 5.0 Edition |
|---|---|
| Enterprise Plus | Enterprise Plus |
| Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Advanced | Enterprise |
| Standard | Standard |
| Essentials Plus | Essentials Plus |
| Essentials | Essentials |
