Archives for May 2009

VMWare vSphere Licensing Changes

May 22, 2009 By Christoph Puetz Leave a Comment

This one might be an issue that will bite VMWare in the rear in the long run. With the release of the new version of ESX 4 “vSphere” they also changed their licensing model a little bit – now putting more emphasis onto Multi-Core CPUs. While the initially looks as not critical, it actually is. Quad-Core CPUs have been out for a long time already, and six-Core and eighth-Core CPUs are out or soon out. VMWare pulls the line at 6 Cores before you have to buy the more expensive license. With hardware being more reliable more VMs will reside on a single system and more RAM and CPU will be needed. So, even if you only have a server with 2 or 4 physical CPUs you suddenly pay a premium for the higher number of cores. Imagine a server with 4 Procs each with 8 cores. You have to shell out quite some cash now to be able to take advantage of that horse power and as a result your overall ROI will go down dramatically because the hardware costs already more and now the software will, too.

Along come Hyper-V, Xen, or maybe Virtual Iron (just acquired by Oracle) – all at a much lower price tag. I am not riding the wave of saying the software like Hyper-V is free as there is always a cost, but crunching the numbers really might pay off. And as a result VMWare might lose out. Hyper-V (r2) is closing the gap on one of the most important features: Vmotion will now be available – called Live Migration. While VMWare has many more features that are nice to have, in days like these when money is tight and budgets get slashed, IT managers might raise the question if they really need all the bells and whistles VMWare vSphere has to offer or if they can get by with Hyper-V (R2).

A Hyper-V rollout might require more thorough planning and a little more attention to level out resources and stuff like that, but overall that extra work might be resources well spent while you save thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars. VMWare likes to respond with a lot of good marketing blabla to many Hyper-V issues – some are true, but quite a few are really just hype. Hyper-V is not the answer to everything, but you might end up with a fair mix of both systems to get the best of both worlds. For VMWare that could mean a much smaller piece of the pie.

ThePlanet.com makes up for it

May 4, 2009 By Christoph Puetz 1 Comment

A while ago I wrote about my experience with ThePlanet.com when I was trying to reduce my portfolio by one dedicated server. They just kept dragging things and it was cumbersome at times. I became a little frustrated and blogged about it. Then I became I side-tracked with other things and did not follow up even though I had $320 at stake which is a fair amount of money.

This week I noticed a credit on my credit card, but the transaction was not completed and so I could not tell it was from. Well, it turned out to be my long hoped for refund from the ThePlanet.com. While I never had problems with ThePlanet tech support before, this was my first major experience with their billing department. I know those guys are going through a lot of growth and that might have had an impact on my situation. I am glad they finally got it all worked out and they put the customer first in the end.

So, my overall impression of ThePlanet.com is still high. Yes, there was an obstacle and I think they could have done better, but overall it turned out to be Ok and they treated me fair. Communication could have definitely been better, but at least in my case this seemed to be an isolated incident.

Why did I cancel one server with ThePlanet? Consolidation, stupid ;). I had sold a large website that needed a dedicated server and I was able to move the remaining website off that server onto other platforms and therefore I wanted to reduce my monthly cost. In this economy I think that is a good move (for me, not for ThePlanet.com).

Anyway – if you are in need of a dedicated server, ThePlanet.com still is one of my top choices. Currently I would go with either ThePlanet.com or Liquidweb.com if I would need another server. They both offer great service and great hardware.

PS: You can also see that I am pretty honest with my recommendations. See this posting about my experience with the The Planet. I tell how things are.