With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Of course almost no one is going to do this, they are going to look for Virtual Machine Manager or some other gui.
So the complaint at least from @scottalanmiller is trivial and moot.
This is not moot. The point was that KVM has "less to do" than alternatives. People keep saying it is hard to install, the point is that it is not, it is easy. Easier than the things that people keep pointing to where they need to ...
- Install the product in question.
- Find and decide on a management tool.
- Install a platform for the management tool.
- Deploy the management tool.
While none of those steps are hard, they often take as much time as deploying the original product itself. No matter how you try to trivialize the KVM advantages, the reality is is that even little things become big when viewed comparatively to KVM's install itself. And since the point was that KVM was "so hard" to install, these things are the opposite of moot.
All of these same steps must be performed with KVM.
No, they don't. That was the point. I get this out of the box for basic functionality. I have step 1, not 2, 3 or 4. Assuming Fedora/KVM or any of several others. They include this all.
-
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Of course almost no one is going to do this, they are going to look for Virtual Machine Manager or some other gui.
So the complaint at least from @scottalanmiller is trivial and moot.
This is not moot. The point was that KVM has "less to do" than alternatives. People keep saying it is hard to install, the point is that it is not, it is easy. Easier than the things that people keep pointing to where they need to ...
- Install the product in question.
- Find and decide on a management tool.
- Install a platform for the management tool.
- Deploy the management tool.
While none of those steps are hard, they often take as much time as deploying the original product itself. No matter how you try to trivialize the KVM advantages, the reality is is that even little things become big when viewed comparatively to KVM's install itself. And since the point was that KVM was "so hard" to install, these things are the opposite of moot.
All of these same steps must be performed with KVM.
No, they don't. That was the point. I get this out of the box for basic functionality. I have step 1, not 2, 3 or 4.
Virt-Manager and oVirt are just two of them, you have to choose. Or you have to know what to "use".
Just because Virt-Manager gets installed, doesn't mean it's a decision you didn't make. The choice of using KVM on Fedora gave you a default suite of tools to use, including Virt-Manager and or Cockpit.
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Of course almost no one is going to do this, they are going to look for Virtual Machine Manager or some other gui.
So the complaint at least from @scottalanmiller is trivial and moot.
This is not moot. The point was that KVM has "less to do" than alternatives. People keep saying it is hard to install, the point is that it is not, it is easy. Easier than the things that people keep pointing to where they need to ...
- Install the product in question.
- Find and decide on a management tool.
- Install a platform for the management tool.
- Deploy the management tool.
While none of those steps are hard, they often take as much time as deploying the original product itself. No matter how you try to trivialize the KVM advantages, the reality is is that even little things become big when viewed comparatively to KVM's install itself. And since the point was that KVM was "so hard" to install, these things are the opposite of moot.
All of these same steps must be performed with KVM.
No, they don't. That was the point. I get this out of the box for basic functionality. I have step 1, not 2, 3 or 4.
Virt-Manager and oVirt are just two of them, you have to choose. Or you have to know what to "use".
No, you CAN choose an ADDITIONAL way with KVM. That's totally different because the native one is there by default. Can you switch or add, yes, of course. It doesn't take away options. But unlike the other three, it comes with the GUI out of the box in a default install. It's very different. You can argue, like @stacksofplates has, that the GUI it comes with is not yet complete enough to qualify, but you can't argue that it isn't there.
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Just because Virt-Manager gets installed, doesn't mean it's a decision you didn't make. The choice of using KVM on Fedora gave you a default suite of tools to use, including Virt-Manager and or Cockpit.
It installs both, but one is the default GUI. It's not just the default GUI in this situation, it's the native GUI of the Fedora platform.
-
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
-
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Of course almost no one is going to do this, they are going to look for Virtual Machine Manager or some other gui.
So the complaint at least from @scottalanmiller is trivial and moot.
This is not moot. The point was that KVM has "less to do" than alternatives. People keep saying it is hard to install, the point is that it is not, it is easy. Easier than the things that people keep pointing to where they need to ...
- Install the product in question.
- Find and decide on a management tool.
- Install a platform for the management tool.
- Deploy the management tool.
While none of those steps are hard, they often take as much time as deploying the original product itself. No matter how you try to trivialize the KVM advantages, the reality is is that even little things become big when viewed comparatively to KVM's install itself. And since the point was that KVM was "so hard" to install, these things are the opposite of moot.
All of these same steps must be performed with KVM.
No, they don't. That was the point. I get this out of the box for basic functionality. I have step 1, not 2, 3 or 4.
Virt-Manager and oVirt are just two of them, you have to choose. Or you have to know what to "use".
No, you CAN choose an ADDITIONAL way with KVM. That's totally different because the native one is there by default. Can you switch or add, yes, of course. It doesn't take away options. But unlike the other three, it comes with the GUI out of the box in a default install. It's very different. You can argue, like @stacksofplates has, that the GUI it comes with is not yet complete enough to qualify, but you can't argue that it isn't there.
I've not argued that there isn't a management interface, I've said you are either using Virt-Manager, virsh CLI or something else. You have to know what to use and or make a choice to not use something different.
-
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
Yes indeed you can.
-
@FATeknollogee said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
Yes indeed you can.
I've seen pictures of it, but never figured out how they set it up to do it.
-
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@FATeknollogee said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
Yes indeed you can.
I've seen pictures of it, but never figured out how they set it up to do it.
That would be a weird limitation. You mean I have 15 KVM servers all with their own workloads, and I need to open 15 tabs to manage each host and the guests they have?!
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@FATeknollogee said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
Yes indeed you can.
I've seen pictures of it, but never figured out how they set it up to do it.
That would be a weird limitation. You mean I have 15 KVM servers all with their own workloads, and I need to open 15 tabs to manage each host and the guests they have?!
No one said it was a limitation, just we have not set it up
-
@JaredBusch my point was that it is weird that Scott has 1) never tried and 2) has never had anyone who has asked about it.
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@FATeknollogee said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@scottalanmiller said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
And in theory, but only a theory as I've not done this to prove it, you can use Cockpit for multiple hosts, not just one.
Yes indeed you can.
I've seen pictures of it, but never figured out how they set it up to do it.
That would be a weird limitation. You mean I have 15 KVM servers all with their own workloads, and I need to open 15 tabs to manage each host and the guests they have?!
No, you can do it all through one. Most of our customers, being in the SMB, only have one server, so they aren't all in one system. It wouldn't be normal to combine lots of clients into one system. No one with Hyper-V or VMware would do that either, it would be weird. You would treat each customer individually.
In the SMB, single servers is the norm by far today. So that's how it is normally done. For shops with more than one server, often they've not done a large refresh, so you aren't seeing loads of multi-KVM deployments out there yet.
-
Based on my past findings, if you purchased an Essentials license (this is all I have ever purchased) you do not lose any functions after support expiration. vCenter even keeps working to my knowledge. You no long have software updates and if you want to re-up they will charge a re-up fee along with support fee.
As for retail pricing, Essentials is $666 for first three years of software upgrades and $180 for three year software upgrades. A licensee can pay per hour for support if needed.
To me, being in SMB, $850 for 6 years is reasonable. Many of these same clients have no issue paying for Sonicwalls, Fortinet and Watchguard UTM's either and we have had many discussions on the cost of those.
-
@pmoncho said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Based on my past findings, if you purchased an Essentials license (this is all I have ever purchased) you do not lose any functions after support expiration. vCenter even keeps working to my knowledge. You no long have software updates and if you want to re-up they will charge a re-up fee along with support fee.
So this part here seems insane, meaning I can't fix security vulnerabilities or bugs ever.
As for retail pricing, Essentials is $666 for first three years of software upgrades and $180 for three year software upgrades. A licensee can pay per hour for support if needed.
To me, being in SMB, $850 for 6 years is reasonable. Many of these same clients have no issue paying for Sonicwalls, Fortinet and Watchguard UTM's either and we have had many discussions on the cost of those.
The price isn't unrealistic in any sense that I can come too, but I'm asking to have the conversation. Which, failing to remain supported, creates some major security concerns.
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@pmoncho said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
Based on my past findings, if you purchased an Essentials license (this is all I have ever purchased) you do not lose any functions after support expiration. vCenter even keeps working to my knowledge. You no long have software updates and if you want to re-up they will charge a re-up fee along with support fee.
So this part here seems insane, meaning I can't fix security vulnerabilities or bugs ever.
AFAIK, correct. That is how they get you to keep support. I believe you can go down to the free version and then lose the backup API's and vCenter.
Which, failing to remain supported, creates some major security concerns.
That it does, unless you go down to limited features and no backup api's. -
@pmoncho removing features may not be an option that can be considered depending on how ESXi is used. So there really is no good answer here. You're forced to pay continuously.
Essentially extorted to pay for functionality and security.
-
@DustinB3403 said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
@pmoncho removing features may not be an option that can be considered depending on how ESXi is used. So there really is no good answer here. You're forced to pay continuously.
Essentially extorted to pay for functionality and security.
Actually, extorted to pay for security as the functions stick with the expired license. Mind you, I have only run into this situation once about 4 years ago. It may have changed since then.
I believe that is why software updates is only $60 per year. That is dirt cheap considering it is ESXi.
Although, as we see many from many other software companies, VMware is not alone in this type of licensing.
-
@pmoncho said in With ESXi Licensing what happens if I let it lapse:
I believe that is why software updates is only $60 per year. That is dirt cheap considering it is ESXi.
Dirt cheap would be $0/year forever like with XCP-ng and KVM.
-
Granted it may only be $60/year but that is still an added expense when there are alternative options that have no such expense.
-
Add on top of that, that there could be software restrictions in place as well, limiting what you can do with your hypervisor(s). It adds things into the "Cons" column.
