back to article VMware scales up vSphere virt, rejigs prices

Given the radical change in features, pricing, and packaging that VMware did when it kicked out the vSphere 4.0 server virtualization toolset - which is basically the ESX Server 4.0 hypervisor and its related vCenter management console - it is not reasonable to expect a huge amount of change fifteen months later as VMware revs …

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  1. apleszko

    ESX 4.1 supports 128 logical processors, not 64

    Hello TPM, allow me to point out that the information about ESX 4.1 keeping the 64 logical processors support for the host machine is not correct.

    The hypervisor 4.1 release include, among other features, the support for 128 logical processors and specifically the Intel 7500 processor family. Check the links bellow for more details:

    ESX 4.1 configuration maximum (page 2):

    http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_config_max.pdf

    VMWare 4.1 "What's New":

    http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_41_new_feat.html

    Best regards,

    Alex

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    seriously

    they're putting the prices UP?!

    I have a hard job convincing customers to buy this over Hyper-V and Xen Server already let alone if the price goes up.

    They also need to take a long hard look at $1k per socket addons too, especially when those addons are basically buttons that run simple scripts!

    1. Michael Hoffmann Silver badge

      Milking it as long as they can

      As long as Xen and H-V are still so far behind in features that allow me to sleep at night (vmotion, HA/DRS, managing VM sprawl, etc) instead of just "oh cool I can pack all my old servers on to one box" simple consolidation, VMware can get away with it.

      Doesn't mean I'm happy with it, just that I have to cope with getting what I pay for.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        Re: Milking it as long as they can

        Keep up Michael. All of those features have been available on all platforms for well over a year (2 or 3 in some cases).

        Xen also has DR capability out of the box which VMware charge $1k per processor for.

        System Center Suite costs less than vCenter and vSphere and includes the ability to manage your entire estate including patching (and offline VM patching), building desktop and server images, deploying software, monitoring and managing, DRS/HA equivelants which also monitor app level metrics.

        If anything, VMware is starting to drop behind when you look at the bigger picture, and many of the products are shoddy and poorly implemented when you get over the "ooh shiny" factor.

        I think you'll find that once all of the lazy consultants (yes, you) actually read the up to date info on alternative products then VMware will not be able to "get away with it".

        for the record I'm qualified in all 3 and want to keep my VCPs therefore anon :)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    VMotion?

    Seriously? Why does that sounds like a name of a toy to me?

  4. Adam White

    ESXi is still free

    Virtually the only reason to chose vSphere over ESXi was if you wanted vMotion so it makes sense to include that in the standard package. $83 a socket is not much once you've paid for your blades, SAN, etc.

  5. TomasF
    Stop

    How come every coverage has missed the most important thing in 4.1?

    "ESXi is just the ESX Server hypervisor with the console manager ripped out of it"

    Actually, starting with the next release after vSphere 4.1, vSphere is actually "ESXi with the ESX Server ripped out of it".

    Apparently, VMware is terminating ESX and going for just the ESXi path. I think that's a big deal, and I think a lot of their other big customers will think so too.

    Release notes state: "VMware ESX. VMware vSphere 4.1 and its subsequent update and patch releases are the last releases to include both ESX and ESXi hypervisor architectures. Future major releases of VMware vSphere will include only the VMware ESXi architecture."

    and

    "VMware recommends that customers start transitioning to the ESXi architecture when deploying VMware vSphere 4.1"

    IMO this means a substantial part of the article should have been focused differently, but maybe that's just me...

    "VMotion? Seriously? Why does that sounds like a name of a toy to me?"

    I think you took a wrong turn somewhere...

  6. BartVDE
    Happy

    128 cores - 2TB memory, sounds familiar...

    How nice of vmware to finally adapt their specs to suit the machines they have been helping develop...

    In this case the Bullion server, built by Bull.

    specs can be found here : http://www.bull.com/bullion/bullion_specsheet.pdf

    Launched back in april, it comes with Esxi embedded for all your virtualization needs, with a particular focus on virtualizing those business critical applications you never dared to virtualize before.

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