VMware vSphere 5 License Reporting

The new vSphere 5 licensing model is accompanied by a new licensing report that allows customers to query vRAM utilization.  Although this report is accessed through the standard vSphere Client, it is based on the next-generation Flex framework and served up via the vSphere Web Client — a server normally used by end-user web browsers.  The report looks like this:

VCVA License Reporting Bug

Conveniently, the VCVA comes with the Web Client already installed.  Unfortunately, a small workaround is needed before the license reporting feature can be used on the VCVA, which shows the following error by default:

While the actual bug is in the vSphere Client, the workaround is to re-register the Web Client from the command line on the VCVA.  Keep in mind the default username/password for the VCVA are root/vmware, shown below — please change yours.  To fix the reporting issue, log in via SSH and run the following commands, which will prompt interactively for confirmation:

# /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/scripts/admin-cmd.sh unregister https://`hostname`:9443/vsphere-client localhost root vmware
# /usr/lib/vmware-vsphere-client/scripts/admin-cmd.sh register https://`hostname`:9443/vsphere-client localhost root vmware

Here is the process in action:

After re-registering the vSphere Web Client, the license report will work as expected.

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Next question: Does Microsoft plan to do anything similar to the vTax?

NO, we have no intention of imposing:

• A VM Memory vTax
• A VM Core vTax
• A VM Replication vTax

This is great for vSphere customers, who often license Windows Server Datacenter Edition — per CPU socket — to run an unlimited number of VMs on an ESXi host.  As CPU cores and DIMM capacities continue to increase and Windows pricing remains constant, customers everywhere stand to save considerably on Microsoft licensing by consolidating Windows workloads onto fewer and fewer sockets.

It’s unusual to see a long-term price commitment like this from a strategic* enterprise software provider — especially one that, not long ago, introduced a new premium license for SQL Server weighing in at $55,000 per socket and clearly intended to maximize revenues from virtualized databases.

*Inside joke.  Did you get it?

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While you transition from VI3 to vSphere you will still need to keep the license server around, though.  Fortunately vCenter Server 4 is fully equipped to handle the task of pointing your ESX 3 hosts to the appropriate licensing source.

Behind the Scenes

The new architecture is a welcome change, but internally it was always very convenient to point to a central license server to quickly set up new VC and ESX systems.  Take a look at this vCenter Server licensing report — pointing to one of the internal VMware servers with one million licenses of ESX Standard.

Are you going to miss FLEXlm? I’m not.

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What?

SCVMM is licensed by the number of physical hosts under management — which includes both the Hyper-V and ESX hypervisors.  And, by the way, if you intend to use the “PRO Tips” or any of the other features that require integration with System Center Operations Manager 2007 (SCOM), you will need to buy the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) for $1497 per physical host.

For example, if you have 10 VMware ESX servers in your environment and you decide to integrate SCVMM, you will owe Microsoft $1470 x 10 = $14,970.

When you look closely, the cost of all that free virtualization really starts to add up.

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One thing I really appreciate about this article is that even though it was written by a Microsoft employee, it specifically acknowledges that the licensing model is true for all virtualization platforms.  There are some folks out there that misrepresent this.

Reminds me of this clever video from DanteDog:

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After you are ready to move up from the entry-level platform, or go from your evaluation stage to full production, shouldn’t it be a relatively easy and non-disruptive process?  I would expect this to be the case.  Maybe that’s because I’m used to VirtualCenter, which has an intuitive dialog box to control the product’s edition and evaluation state:

SCVMM takes a different approach.  I was a little surprised when I just read the steps required to move up to the full version.  Essentially, you need to uninstall the product but retain the database, reinstall the full version, and then give your mouse finger a little workout as you go through and right-click a bunch of things to resuscitate them from their state of denial.

While it may not be a task that is performed every day, simpler is usually better in my book.

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