I think 32GB of pRAM and vRAM for the free hypervisor is fair. I got an email about the updates this morning.
Fred Peterson wrote:
According to the FAQ it is not 32GB / socket for the free version, its 32GB total per server.
This sucks, I had a project coming where the server is going to have 48GB in it with nearly all of it assigned and I wanted to avoid buying licenses. Looks like I still will have to. argh.
Well hey, I'd like to get everything for free too, but realistically if they just gave away enterprise-class capabilities, nobody would buy it out of the goodness of their hearts...
32 GB seems like a happy medium to me. I think the vast majority of single-socket boxes and even most duals are not using more than that yet, and if you have a 48 GB ESXi server, well, that's not really a demo system is it? I've always looked at the free edition as a way to get VMware's foot in the door in orgs that don't really get it yet ("look, give me that old server in the corner and the software is free"), and also as a way to quickly set up a test/dev environment. It's not for doing production deployments.
The bottom line is yeah, they pooched up the new licensing at first, but from my point of view it's good enough now that I'm back to planning to upgrade to ESXi 5 rather than going to my management and suggesting Xen or Linux KVM.
But while I'm in wish-for-a-pony mode, can we get a certificate good for one gold bar with every free-edition license key? 
Todd wrote:
The new adjusted vRAM license levels announced late last week aren't acceptable?? :smileyconfused:
The free edition is now a flat 32G if I understand it correctly and the paid editions had a significant vRAM upgrade.
I went from needing 6 licenses per DL580 back to my original 4 for enterprise plus - I couldn't be happier about these changes (Well if they removed the CPU socket limits and just went with vRAM costing I'd be dancing in the streets). Large VM's won't count more that 96G worse case against your vRAM entitlement (edition dependant I think) so the $22k plus in extra licensing argument for a single 1T VM argument dies there.
If cost is your only concern, vsphere's edu sku was never less than a Hyper-v one (we pay $340 roughly per socket for 2008R2 Data Center) and you would have needed to purchase DC licenses anyway in your vmware farm to be cost effective hosting Windows server VM's (if we run 4 servers per socket it's a break even cost with buying Windows Enterprise).
For me the math works out great: I build 64G per socket, the entitlement is 96G giving me roughly a 33% overall oversubscription rate. I buy one Ent+ and one Windows Datacenter per socket so I can stack my 20 Windows/Linux VM's per socket average on it. I can't imagine trying to manage up to 80 mixed Vm's per Hyper-V host....
This is a thread about the free hypervisor. Waving Enterprise Plus licenses around won't get you a whole lot of sympathy & understanding.
For most people, the free hypervisor will work fine for their purposes at 32 GB vRAM, but it's not hard to imagine scenarios where previous free 4.1 gave you a lot more resources to play with than the new and 'improved' 32 GB vRAM of Hypervisor 5.0 gives you.
Yes I did seem to get quite a bit OT there - sorry bout that :smileyblush: - been writing too many briefs and updated status reports and lost my way on this thread.
I was happy to see the 32G on the free edition - saved me from having to rebuild my 12 remote County Center hosts with Hyper-V.
The biggest issue I can see with 4.1 vs 5 though is that with vRAM oversubscription, a free V5 won't be of much use to an existing free V4.1 host with more than 24G of physcial RAM.
What's going to suck for me is my prototype/training host 32G box (ESXi free edition running ESXi trial editions within it for training/research) where I'm oversubscribed on my ram by 70% - I may have to drop my ESXi VM's down to 3G per of vRAM to make it work.
...Or just leave it V4.1 and install V5 ESXi trials inside it
Todd wrote:
The new adjusted vRAM license levels announced late last week aren't acceptable?? :smileyconfused:
If you're not interested in setting money on fire, yeah. 
No but seriously, some of us were like "hey, maybe VMWare will match their new v5 with competitive pricing" when rumors of v5 were floating around. Now anyone outside of essentials (and some in essentials) are going to have to pay more if they want to maintain the ability to grow.
At least I can use free version at home again (8GB makes it so I'm at my pRAM, which means I can't overallocate, which means I might as well run XenServer since it comes with XenCenter).
