I'll let Mike Laverick explain it to you, and if you get to his site in time, there might even be a PROMO code to get you started.

Read Mike's comprehensive write-up here:

http://www.mikelaverick.com/2013/03/not-ready-bare-metal-cloud-for-your-auto-lab/

WARNING: By downloading the following file(s), you agree to the following statement(s):This data is provided free of charge with no warranty provided. The use of the data is at your own risk. The author or distributor of this download cannot be held liable for any loss or damages as a result of using the data. All data contained within this download has been sourced directly from the Business Applications on the VMware Platform Website (http://vmware-alliances.force.com/supportedapps/) using an automated script and the integrity of the data it contains cannot be guaranteed. All data is subject to change without notice and should only be used as an initial reference. Always confirm application support with the relevant application vendor(s). The format of data contained in this download has not been approved or funded in any way shape or form by any software vendor, reseller or partner, including VMware, Inc.

Please note that currently the tool only supports Microsoft Excel. Formatting might not show up correctly with other applications.

Download the latest available Supported Business Applications list here

If you’ve ever had to answer the following question “Is application X supported on the VMware Platform?”, then you will probably be familiar with the website that VMware has set up over at http://vmware-alliances.force.com/supportedapps/. It’s a website that is dedicated to Business Applications on the VMware Platform and currently, at the time of writing this post, shows that there are 3707 applications that are officially supported to run on the “VMware Platform”.

What if you were passed a list of 3500 applications that a customer has deployed in their environment? How would you go about verifying each application’s support status? You could of course sit down and manually search the website for each of the applications in your list, but to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be doing that, nor would I be happy to pay an employee a salary to sit down and carry out such a task. The better way to do this of course would be to fully or at least partially automate the process.

There are a few ways that we could automate such a process. One would be to look and see if the website provides some kind of an API that you could query. If it doesn’t have an API, then you could do what we have done, and create a .CSV or .XLSX file which contains all of the data.

A colleague of mine was asked to do exactly what I described above. He was asked to verify the support status of some 3000+ applications on VMware vSphere. So we sat down and thought about how we could extract the current supported applications form the “VMware Business Applications on the VMware Platform” website into a CSV file. A few minutes after we sat down, we came up with the following theoretical method:

• We would download the raw HTML of each of the 287 pages of the website using wget.
• Once the raw HTML is on disk, we would parse the HTML using a Perl script and generate the CSV.

So my colleague set off and started writing a script that could download all of the website pages to HTML files on disk. Whilst he was doing this, I started working away on a small Perl script to parse the HTML. To make a long story short, about an hour after getting the idea we had all of the data in a CSV file that we could easily work with.

However, getting the data was still a two-step process. You had to download the HTML to disk using one script and then parse the HTML using another script. So, in order to make this a little more streamlined, I sat down over the weekend and made my Perl script a little better. The script can now download each page from the website and parse the HTML into a CSV file on the fly.

Although I would love to help the community, I have decided to not make our scripts available. However, I have decided to make the data available.
The data file contains the following data:

• Application Name
• Vendor
• Support Status
• Support Page (Links to the Application Support Page on the VMware Website)

The List of Supported Business Applications can be downloaded from here

Since the project began back in 2011, we have suffered several setbacks, with issues ranging form changes at the project management level, to issues with finding relevant performance related issues in order to produce content. I'm not going to go into much detail as to what exactly the issues were, however, since December 2011 the project has stalled and started up again on several occasions, and for the past year, there has been very little movement in terms of content being generated and therefore reviewed for the book. We have missed several targets in terms of publication dates. The book was originally planned to be released for VMware vSphere 5 and would cover VMware vSphere 4 and 5. We missed the publication for vSphere 5, and then vSphere 5.1 at which point Sybex (an imprint of Wiley) decided to push the publication date back even further and wait for the next release of VMware vSphere, whenever that may be, which would make sense, as at the time the shelf life of a book that is focused on vSphere 5 would not have been long enough to make it worth publishing.

Ever since the publication date got pushed back again, there have been even less interaction between the authors and the editorial teams, and I must admit that there were times that I had though that the book was dead. However, yesterday, the 24th of January, after a conversation with our technical editor, I decided to get in touch with all the authors, and the acquisition editor at Sybex, in order to determine the current state of the project. I have now received responses from most of the parties involved and to make a long story short, this is what is now going to happen.

We are yet to work out the finer details, but as of today, myself and co-author Jonathan Fitch will be taking control of the project in a much more involved way. Previously we were simply writing and submitting content and the rewriting the same content after editorial reviews. We are yet to determine who the “lead” author will be, but together we will review what has been done and what still needs doing, and together we will drive this thing forward. There is now a lot of work to be done, but we will be pushing hard for the next three to four months.

I would like to thank everyone who's been waiting for the book to hit the stands for their patience. I would also like to thank co-author Jonathan for his good work on the book thus far as well as technical editor Matt Liebowitz for his patience, understanding and words of encouragement.

I've been looking into enabling audio recording in VMware View Desktops. This would be useful as it would allow the use of applications such as Skype and TeamSpeak within VMware View published desktops.

By default, the VMware View Agent which is installed within the desktop operating system installs the VMware Virtual Audio Driver. The VMware Virtual Audio Driver enables audio playback from the View Desktop to be played through the VMware View Client. However, the VMware Virtual Audio Driver does not enable analog audio input from the View Client to the View desktop. With the VMware Virtual Audio Driver, audio recording within the View Desktop from an audio source connected to the View Client, such as a microphone, is not possible and applications that rely on Audio input will not function correctly.

One workaround is to install a USB sound card on the View Client machine and use USB redirection to redirect the USB sound card to the View Desktop. Although this works, I've had mixed results during testing, with problems including poor recording quality and at times, a delay in audio.

After a quick search, I stumbled upond a VMware KB Article that provided me with hope of a better solution than USB redirection. VMware KB Article 2000611 states that in order for audio input to be enabled within View Desktops, an audio driver from Teradici needs to be installed. The Teradici Virtual Audio Driver will enable support for Analog Audio input from the View Client to the View Desktop. The driver can only be downloaded directly from the Teradici support site, although the support site does require registration in order to access the download. Once registered the driver can be downloaded from the following page:

http://techsupport.teradici.com/ics/support/default.asp?deptID=15164

I've only tested the driver with Windows XP View Desktops. I was quite impressed with the recording audio quality and latency that the driver provides.

Although the driver works very well with VMware View Clients running on Windows, the same cannot be said for the VMware View Client for Linux (Versions 1.5 & 1.6). After going back to the Teradici Support site and reading the driver release notes, my fear that the VMware View Client for Linux does not provide the neccesary audio input functionality required for analog audio inputs to work in View Desktops accessed from Linux. The release notes state:

“Note Linux-based VMware View Clients support audio output, but do not support analog audio input (this requires audio input support in the View Linux client, please contact VMware if you are interested in this capability).”

I would love for this functionality to be included within the VMware View Client for Linux, as I have now updated most of my personal computers at home to run Linux desktops.

This latest version builds on unique, patented virtual appliance architecture to deliver a powerful, feature-filled, easy to use backup solution for virtual servers at a fraction of the cost of competitive alternatives. Designed from the ground up as an exclusively virtual solution for the virtual environment, additional functionality in PHD Virtual Backup v6.0 includes:

• PHD Instant Recovery for VMware: Eliminate downtime and meet SLA’s

Make any application available as quickly as possible in the event of a failure. PHD Instant Recovery gets you back up and running in less than 3 minutes.

• Full/Incremental Backup Mode: Optimized for Moving Data Offsite & to the Cloud

Extending the flexibility of PHD Virtual Backup, full/incremental mode is ideal for organizations leveraging third party tools to copy backup files to the Cloud, or Tape, or those utilizing a hardware deduplication appliance or CIFS as a backup target.

• Application Aware Backups: Ensure Application Consistent Backup

Take an application aware backup for any application every time. Maintain full confidence that backups of your mission critical applications will complete without fail.

• Enhanced File Recovery: Dramatically Simplified File Recovery

Consume fewer resources and take advantage of unprecedented flexibility with enhanced file recovery.

• Email Report Enhancements: Manage Your Daily Backups with Ease

“Set it and Forget it” backup management with daily, easy to read, HTML emails detailing backup jobs.

• Encryption and Security Improvements: Meet your Organization’s Compliance Policies with Ease

Enhance security with built-in encryption and meet compliance requirements with customizable security certificates.

• Virtual Backup Appliance (VBA) Tools: Efficient Backup Infrastructure Management

Simplify and streamline backup infrastructure management even further with new VBA Tools like Health Monitor.

How does PHD Virtual Backup v6.0 deliver value compared to other backup products? The main points are listed below although there are more!

1. PHD Virtual installs and configures in 10 minutes or less sporting one of the easiest installations for a ranking backup product.
2. It also has menus that are integrated into your existing hypervisor client and an intuitive,  wizard-driven interface. This means you don’t need to read the documentation. It’s just that easy!
3. One of the best features of PHD Virtual is their unique architecture! You can easily deploy a new Virtual Backup Appliance (VBA) to handle additional workload and set up a new backup job takes only minutes.
4. PHD Virtual Backup performs much faster on incremental backups than most other vendors maximizing speed by leveraging the best technologies available, including hot-add from VMware, change block tracking, and deduplication.
5. Instant VM Recovery is a great new feature of 6.0 allowing you to get back up and running in less than 3 minutes while File Recovery options provide access to your backed up files, folders, and application objects within seconds.
6. Virtual Backup Appliance also mean there are no management servers, proxy servers, or data servers (usually required by many other solutions)

PHD Virtual costs up to 40% less than its competitors while delivering product value to rival any other vendor!

For more information on PHD Virtual Backup 6.0 please go to http://PHDVirtual.com

Mike Laverick (@Mike_Laverick) over at www.rtfm-ed.co.uk has released a new book, “Building End-User Computing Solutions with VMware View”. Mike and co-author Barry Coombs (@VirtualisedReal) over at www.virtualisedreality.com have been working on the title for quite some time.

This book is all about VMware View 5.1 and ThinApp 4.7.2 administration - and it takes in a wide scope of complementary technologies from the likes of Teradici, BitDefender and F5 Networks. Towards the end the focus switches away from virtual desktops to look at the future of end-user computing including VMware’s ThinApp Factory and Horizon Application Manager.

This book is a not for profit venture. The monies raised by the sale of the book will be donated in full to the work of UNICEF. UNICEF carries out work across the globe that benefits all children regardless of their social, ethnic, religious or geographical location. It’s our sincere hope that people will use the legitimate sources for acquiring this book – and by doing so support the work of UNICEF.

The book can be purchased from LULU.COM

The original announcement follows:

StratoGen are pleased to announce the start of our VCD51 beta program which will provide valuable feedback on our implementation of the next version of VMware vCloud Director.

 Beta testing underpins all of our product launches and is crucial in our ability to provide services that lead the hosted VMware market whilst remaining highly resilient. In this program we are particularly interested in working with experienced “power users” who are familiar with VPNs, complex internetworking and able to utilize tiered SAN storage.

 By participating in this program you agree to be contacted to provide feedback on usability and platform performance. In return you will be one of the first to use this exciting new technology, and allocated temporary resources on our USA based enterprise platform.

 StratoGen is a leading VMware hosting provider with award winning cloud platforms in both the USA and UK.

If you would like to take part in the program please visit http://www.stratogen.com/products/vmware-hosting.html and follow the link for the Beta program to register your interest.

At the time of writing the instructions, the update that I was looking at was ESXi 4.1 Update 1. However, the steps below will work on all newer ESXi versions as well.

VMware provides offline updates that can be downloaded from their website in the form of .ZIP archives. These updates can be downloaded from:

http://www.vmware.com/patchmgr/download.portal

Prerequisites

In order to perform the update with PowerCLI, you will need to have Windows PowerShell and PowerCLI installed on a workstation. Most VMware administrators will already have this installed.

Windows PowerShell:
If you are using Windows XP, PowerShell can be found on the Microsoft Website. If you are using Windows 7, Windows PowerShell 2.0 is already installed as part of the OS.

VMware PowerCLI:
Once PowerShell has been installed on your workstation, you will have to download and install VMware PowerCLI. You can download PowerCLI from here:

http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/vsphere/automationtools/powercli

Steps to apply an offline update, in this case ESxi4.1 Update 1, to ESXi via PowerCLI:

1.   Place the host that is going to be upgraded in Maintenance Mode.

2.   Download ESXi 4.1 Update 1 from here:
 
https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/OFFLINE/release-260-20110127-912579/update-from-esxi4.1-4.1_update01.zip

3.  Using a utility such as WinZip or 7Zip, extract the downloaded file to a new folder on your C:\drive

4.  Using the vSphere client, copy the files that were extracted to a folder called “Patches” on any datastore on the SAN that is visible to the host. This can also be placed on a local disk on the ESXi host, however, by placing the updated on shared storage will allow you to update more hosts from the same set of update files, without having to copy the files to each host.

5.  Open the PowerCLI Console from your Start menu.

6. When the prompt pops up, connect to the vCenter server where the ESXi host is being managed from using the following command (you can also connect directly to the host if you like):

  Connect-VIServer <VCENTER-SERVER NAME OR IP>

7.   After the command has been issued, you might be prompted for a username and password.

8.  Apply the patch with the following command:

9. Install-VMHostPatch –VMhost <ESXi name or IP Address> -HostPath /vmfs/volumes/<datastore-name>/Patches/metadata.zip

Note: I have seen a lot of cases where administrators try to point Install-VMHostPatch directly to the update zip archive downloaded from the VMware website. This will not work. You have to extract the archive, copy all of the data to a location that is accessible to the host to be updated, and point Install-VMhostPatch to the metadata.zip file.

I am happy to report that I have managed to get the VMware View PCoIP Client to work on openSUSE Linux 12 with the GNOME 3 desktop environment. The first client I tried was the VMware View Open Client, which is an open source project. However the View Open Client does not support PCoIP and only connects to the View desktops using RDP. As I am not a fan of RDP, I was keen on getting PCoIP to work.

Some background as to why I needed the PCoIP View Client to work on Linux:

Generally for remote access to my lab, I use the VMware View PCoIP Client for Windows, Android and iOS (on the iPad). VMware has made the PCoIP client available on all of these platforms, but no Linux PCoIP client has been released. This article should get you up and running, but bear in mind that it is not supported by VMware.

Read more...

1. Power down the VM

2. Add the following line to the VMX file (can also be done by editing the Advanced VM settings using the vSphere Client):

keyboard.typematicMinDelay = "2000000"

3. Save the VMX file

4. Power on the VM.

I decided to post this as I keep on forgetting what the fix is. Now I'll know where to find it in the future without having to go to Google ;-)

The main issue that has been fixed in this release is a flaw in the formula that calculates the vSphere 4 License count based on the CPU core count.

The problem was discovered when a user tried to calculate licenses based on 7 core CPUs. This had highlighted a major flaw in the original formula for calculating vSphere licenses. The formula for calculating vSphere 4 Licenses has therefore been rewritten from scratch.

Please download version 0.5 and let me know if you discover any further problems with the calculator.

The new version of tha calculator can be found here

Please download version 0.6 and let me know if you discover any further problems with the calculator.

*The vRAM Entitlement for vSphere Enterprise has now been corrected to 64GB*

The new version of tha calculator can be found here

In addition to some bug fixes, this version also displays a graph for each edition of vSphere, instead of just Enterprise Plus.

The calculator can be downloaded from here

The following changes/updates have been made:

• The term "cluster" has been removed
• “Memory Utilization” has been more accurately replaced with vRAM Allocation
• Narrow Columns have been “stretched”
• Extra fields have been added to display CPU core Entitlements for vSphere 4 Editions
• The Enterprise Plus Calculation and Chart/Graph has been reformulated to allow for vSphere 4 to be more expensive when CPUs with more than 12-cores are in use.
• A Virtual Machine Capacity Calculator based on Allocated vRAM has been added
• The general layout of the calculator has been improved
• Calculation fields have been re-ordered to make better logical sense

Please keep in mind that this is a very simple tool and it i very much still in the early stages of development.

The calculator can be downloaded from here

WARNING: By downloading this tool, you agree to the following statement(s):

This calculator is provided free of charge with no warranty provided. The use of this calculator is at your own risk. The author or distributor of this tool cannot be held liable for any loss or damages as a result of using this tool. This calculator has not been approved or funded in any way shape or form by any software vendor, reseller or partner, including VMware, Inc.

The rules and figures used in this calculator are subject to change without prior notice.

Please note that currently the tool only supports Microsoft Excel. Formatting might not show up correctly with other applications.

The current version (version 0.6) can be downloaded from:

vSphere 4 & 5 License calculator Version 0.6 for Microsoft Excel 97 - 2003

vSphere 4 & 5 License calculator Version 0.6 for Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010

Changes in this version:

• The calculator has been updated to reflect the changes made to the vSphere 5 vRAM allocations of 32GB/64GB/96GB.
• Please note that this version of the calculator does not yet take into account calculations for VMs with more than 96GB of allocated memory.

The previous version (version 0.5) can be downloaded from:

vSphere 4 & 5 License calculator Version 0.5 for Microsoft Excel 97 - 2003

vSphere 4 & 5 License calculator Version 0.5 for Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010

Changes in this version:

• The formula for calculating vSphere 4 license count has been rewritten as the original formula could in certain cases provide incorrect license count information.

The previous version (version 0.4) can be downloaded from:

vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator Version 0.4 for Microsoft Excel 97 - 2003

vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator Version 0.4 for Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010

Changes in this version:

The following changes/updates have been made:

• The license cost for the Enterprise Plus graph has been corrected
• A cost graph has been added for each of the vSphere Editions rather than just Enterprise Plus
  

The previous version (version 0.3) can be downloaded from:

vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator Version 0.3 for Microsoft Excel 97 - 2003

vSphere 4 & 5 License Calculator Version 0.3 for Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2010

Changes in this version:

The following changes/updates have been made:

• The term "cluster" has been removed
• “Memory Utilization” has been more accurately replaced with vRAM Allocation
• Narrow Columns have been “stretched”
• Extra fields have been added to display CPU core Entitlements for vSphere 4 Editions
• The Enterprise Plus Calculation and Chart/Graph has been reformulated to allow for vSphere 4 to be more expensive when CPUs with more than 12-cores are in use.
• A Virtual Machine Capacity Calculator based on Allocated vRAM has been added
• The general layout of the calculator has been improved
• Calculation fields have been re-ordered to make better logical sense

Version 0.2 can be found here

After looking into the licensing issue a little deeper, and after spending some time on the phone with my good friend Tom Howarth (from http://www.planetvm.net), I realized that the whole licensing thing isn’t as straight forward as my original post might have pointed out. I’m going to try and explain myself and Tom’s findings.

The first conversation I had with Tom this morning really turned into a session in which we had exchanged our feelings of disbelief and annoyance in regards to where the new licensing model would leave our customers. About half an hour to an hour after that conversation had finished, Tom gave me another call in which he said: “It’s not as bad as we had first thought”. I guess that is what really (indirectly) triggered this post.

Both Tom and I did some calculations on our own and came to the same conclusion. Although we are not entirely in favor of the new licensing model, it does seem to, in certain conditions, force you to stay with recommended best practice in regards to N+1.

I’m going to try and start off with some simple examples to illustrate just what the new licensing model would mean in terms of money.

Bear in mind that in vSphere 5, the licensing will be based on “pools” of resources which I understand is per “vCenter Server instance”. I assume that licenses can move around not only between clusters, but data centre objects as well. However, I could be wrong, so don’t quote me on that just yet.

For simplicity, I’m going to assume that we have a single vCenter server that manages a single cluster of ESXi hosts.

In my first example, I’m going to keep it real simple. In this example we have a single ESXi host being managed by a vCenter server. The ESX host has two 12-core CPUs and 64GB of RAM to start with. The calculation looks as follows:

In the table above, we see that it actually costs more to run vSphere 4 Enterprise than vSphere 5 Enterprise or Enterprise Plus. Also, notice that we require more vSphere 4 Standard and Enterprise licenses as what is required for vSphere 4 Enterprise Plus as well as all of the vSphere 5 Editions. This is because of the 6-core CPU limit on vSphere 4 Standard and Enterprise Editions.

Other than that, there’s not much else to say about the calculation above, so let’s double the memory in that host to a figure that I’m more likely to see more often in my customer environments.

Ok, the table above shows a little more about the penalty that will be paid in terms of vRAM TAX. Because there is now more than 96GB of RAM, an extra CPU license is required to legally make use of use of 100% of the physical memory.

However, as a single host is not very realistic, I’m going to up the ESXi hosts to 4. Let’s see what happens.

The table above shows 4 ESXi hosts. Although the licensing looks bad, keep in mind that we are planning to use 100% of the physical memory in the host, which is not a good idea in terms of HA and N+1. It is also very bad design practice.

So to get ourselves into a better position in regards to HA, let’s apply a rule that states we have to leave 25% headroom in terms of cluster wide memory.

As a result of applying a rule that states that we are only allowed to use 75% of the TOTAL cluster’s physical memory resources, the licensing seems to be more on target, with an equal license count between vSphere 4 and 5. Also, because of the CPU core limit in vSphere 4, notice that with the Enterprise license, vSphere 5 actually works out cheaper than vSphere 4.

Now here’s the trap. Let’s up the Target Physical memory Utilization figure to by 1% to 76% and see what happens.

As soon as we use 76% of the cluster wide physical memory resources, we are required to purchase another license. The biggest issue I have here is that VMware now contradicts itself in terms of features and licensing. For example, they would like to sell vSphere as the “clever” solution that will sort out resource contention with things like Resource Pools (Proportional Share-Based Algorithm) and Transparent Memory Page Sharing, but on the other hand, they tax you for using those features.

In the figure above, vSphere 5 is more expensive as we only have two CPU sockets in each host and are aiming to utilize 100% of the physical memory. As said before, this is a bad design!

The figure above shows that with the reduced Max physical memory utilization of 75%, vSphere 4 and vSphere 5 is on equal footing in regards to price. However, the catch is detailed in the graphs below:

The figure above starts to reveal the vRAM tax. Simply because we use 1% more than 75% of the physical memory, we now require an additional CPU license on vSphere 5

Now the figure above shows just how the vRAM tax is applied. The next figure will make it even clearer.

Ok, so we can clearly see that from the images above, based on 128GB of RAM per host, which I have to say, based on my experience, is an average amount of RAM for today’s blade systems, the penalty get’s heavier and heavier with every host you add to the environment.

Now, if you do end up in a situation where you need to purchase additional licenses, the only thing that can think of to cushion the blow a little would be to double the amount of physical processor packages in each host, if you have the empty sockets available to do so. Probably the worst thing I can think of is having a situation where you have more licenses than physical CPUs and still have empty CPU sockets. At least, by filling the empty CPU sockets, you’ll have the option of additional CPU resources.

On July 12, 2011 at about 16:00GMT, VMware announced vSphere 5 and a bunch of changes surrounding the product suite. During the event, Twitter was ablaze with updates with regards to what was being revealed by VMware. However, one of the changes seemed to have caused some concern amongst the trusted virtualisation community. The change to the vSphere licensing model is what seems to have been discussed quite a bit on Twitter.

I’m not going to expand by giving details on the licensing changes, for more information on the new licensing model, see the link below:

http://wcc.on24.com/event/33/43/99/rt/1/documents/slidepdf/cloud_infrastructure_licensing_v2.pdf

At first I wasn’t going to write up on this as the blogging community already came out and published pre written posts as soon as the VMware NDA time expired at 16h00 GMT. Also, I’m pressed for time at the moment, so I’m rushing this one and the research done on this post in.

After doing some number crunching, I came to a disturbing conclusion. Unless my calculations are way off, and unless VMware is drastically going to reduce the “per license” price tag, the new licensing model will offer a raw deal to VMware’s customers.

As far as I am aware, VMware has not yet published the price list for vSphere 5. As I really wanted to see what implications the new licensing strategy was going to have in terms of today’s prices, I did some calculations using today’s vSphere 4 license costs. As I said, unless VMware reduces the price per license, it would be almost impossible to sell the product to some of my current customers who already think that VMware vSphere is too expensive in comparison to rivals such as Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Well, unless I’m very wrong, it’s about to get worse!

Now, bear in mind that I did these calculations in a rather short period of time. I’ve not done a whole bunch of research on the new licensing model yet, but went by what the PDF stipulates. I could have made a fundamental mistake somewhere, and I really hope that I am wrong on this.

Please, if anyone can find a major error somewhere in my figures, please let me know.

I based my calculations on the following template as most of my customers typically run a similar setup;

• 2 CPU sockets
•  12 Cores per CPU
•  128GB per Host

I compared what the new vSphere 5 model would cost in comparison to the vSphere 4 licensing model. The results are truly staggering!

Also, to give vSphere 4 a level playing field in terms of memory assignment, I assumed that we would want to be able to use up to 100% of the physical memory in the cluster, as this would not carry any penalty in terms of vRAM TAX in vSphere 4. Now I know that the license on vRAM is on allocated and not on total physical memory, but for an apples and apples comparison on possible memory consumpsion, this was the most straight forward way of calculating the numbers.

Below are my results. Now if I have made some mistakes here, please let me know. I’m looking for constructive comments here! An argument is not going to help anyone