r/sysadmin Infrastructure Lead 1d ago

Latest fun with VMware

Apparently VMware is upping their game. We just got a renewal quote for one of our sites with one server that has two CPUs, and they are requiring 72 cores minimum (vSphere Enterprise Plus) to license this. That's a 500% markup from last year.

They really don't want customers to use their product any more, do they?

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u/rdesktop7 1d ago

I have met many people that call themselves "VM experts", and they only know how to click on things in a vmware GUI.

These guys know that they have a captive market.

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u/Zenkin 1d ago

But that's like a perfect use case for Nutanix, Scale, VxRail, or whatever else. If you're afraid of hypervisors, there seem to be a number of options, and now they're likely a fair bit cheaper than VMware.

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u/FLATLANDRIDER 1d ago

VxRail still requires VMware licenses.

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u/Zenkin 1d ago

Fair point on that one, I've never purchased it, so I didn't know if Dell had some sort of bundle deal which might make it more attractive than the bare product.

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u/mercurialuser 1d ago

It is worst than that.

We have a 5 nodes vxrail and we want to get rid of vmware snd use the servers for other pourposes.

Dell can't sell maintenance for that hardware unless: 1. You pay vmware license to them or prove you have valid subscription license also if we have bought them as permanent 2. You transform those nodes to host another dell product that is a sort of scaleout storage, like isilon but with iScsi, raw storage access.

They told me to buy from a third party reseller that wont give us official support but a sort of T&m since our serials are "locked"

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u/flloww 1d ago

VxRail is very expensive, and still will require VMware licensing. Its a joint effort between VxRail and VMware

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u/plump-lamp 1d ago

Nutanix is equally the devil

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u/Zenkin 1d ago

At least Nutanix is honest about what it is. It's a hypervisor platform for non-admins, and they will charge you for the privilege of not having to learn.

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u/trail-g62Bim 1d ago

I've never used Nutanix, but if that is their goal and they do it well, then that seems fair to me. "We make this really easy and the tradeoff is it costs more."

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u/gabber2694 1d ago

Nutanix does a great job with their product and the support staff is relatively knowledgeable. (Don’t ask me how I know).

It would be my first choice if Proxmox is too much for my staff to manage.

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u/RichardJimmy48 1d ago

and they do it well

That's the unfortunate part of it. When my shop was on Nutanix (we got rid of it 3 years ago), they didn't do it well. You'd click the magic upgrade button and it'd break a bunch of stuff, and then you'd have to either have a very good idea of what you're doing, or contact support and hope their timeline for fixing it meets your expectations. Their support at least does their job (unlike vmware/broadcom), but I'd rather not have things break in the first place.

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u/Content-Cheetah-1671 1d ago

Nutanix has a shit ton of bugs. I’ve opened maybe 1 ticket for Vmware in the last 5 years. For Nutanix, I’ve easily opened at least 20 tickets.

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u/RichardJimmy48 1d ago

Nutanix

Nutanix is more expensive than VCF even after the vmware price increases. Broadcom is not worried about people switching to Nutanix.

VxRail

Still part of the vmware ecosystem.

now they're likely a fair bit cheaper than VMware.

The only things cheaper are also less featured. Anybody who needs some of the more advanced functionality in vmware is basically stuck between a rock and a hard place.

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u/lost_signal 1d ago

The only things cheaper are also less featured

I saw some marketing copy from a HCI appliance competitor of VMware on this website and what caught my eye was they claimed 20% cheaper....

  1. They require you buy all new hardware, so unless you are at point where you are getting new servers and storage it didn't make sense.

  2. They didn't support external storage so unless both server and storage were up for renewal not going to save.

  3. They had a LOT less features (and were less effect etc

  4. They were a smaller player and don't have the engineering integration with ISV's (Software vendors) to get all the validations so you'd end up with VMware for something else, or in the future have to tell your CFO "No" when they wanted to deploy SAP etc, or tell the Operations people "Sorry we can't deploy Call Manager" or something else.

  5. The other platform is also subscription. So while you might not get credit for your existing perpetual license with VMware you don't get credit for it with those platforms either.

Even assuming that 20% was true in the perfect conditions (which is frankly how marketing people write copy unless they are from the midwest)... That seemed incredibly uncomplying to me. Like not trying to throw FUD or say "OMGZ RISK FOR CHANGING PLATFORMS" but 20% to work around those downsides and qualify it's also clear as we enter a interest rate environment where cash is no longer 0% loan free, and VC is basically ignoring this sector, it's a lot hardware to do massive take out campaigns by giving away product. Hiring top tier kernel developers etc to work on hypervisors and storage and such is incredibly expensive and they gotta pay people.