It’s probably been one of the worst kept secrets in IT but now the news is officially out. Today, VMware is launching the next generation of their products – collectively called vSphere. vSphere is comprised of the stuff you already know (VMware ESX Server and VMware Virtual Center) plus new and existing management products. All of that together is vSphere.
vSphere is a major launch for VMware and lays the foundation for the next generation of how companies do computing. It builds on top of everything customers already have and gives them even more power. It also provides the foundation to build internal and external clouds. There are three main take-aways from today’s launch event that you should know about:
- If you’re a current customer then go out and upgrade NOW. There are so many things that have been put into this product at the direct request of customers that you should start taking advantage of these things today. The upgrade is fairly painless and the features you get with this release will help you get back even more of your precious time.
- VMware vSphere is the best value for money for every customer segment.
- The competition debate is over. Pricing was the only argument for the competition. With the new packages, VMware delivers the best value and best ROI at every pricepoint, starting from free all the way to $3500/CPU, from small customers all the way to global enterprises.
1) Upgrade NOW!!! If you are a current enterprise customer, you get 30% better consolidation, 50% additional storage savings, 20% additional power savings just by upgrading to 4.0. And to top it all, you get amazing new capabilities – Fault Tolerance for mainframe-class availability, automatic security zoning for apps, blazing performance for Tier 1 apps, etc. No extra charge – it is all free. The business value could not be more compelling.
2) VMware is delivering the best value for the money for all customers.
- For SMB – The SMB value proposition is unique. VMware is delivering Enterprise-class, ‘Always-On’ IT without requiring enterprise-class, expensive IT staff at prices SMB can afford. In addition to savings on servers, memory and power, VMware is enabling 50% storage savings through built-in capabilities like thin provisioning that SMB could never previously afford. VMware is delivering virtualization manageability starting at as little as $165/CPU. VMware has also taken the Virtual Infrastructure Standard SKU which was oriented at the enterprise with its performance and high availability and are now offering the same capabilities for $1500. No one else offers the combination of savings, ‘always-on IT’, manageability, performance that VMware does.
- For mid-market and commercial customers, vSphere Advanced is the new SKU and it offers a groundbreaking combination of consolidation, high availability, security and management at mid-market prices. Advanced SKU provides Fault Tolerance, security zones, one-click data protection and of course VMotion, all integrated with best-in-class virtualization management. When you combine these capabilities with the 30% additional consolidation ratio and 50% storage savings, you get a solution that is not only unrivalled but a fantastic value.
- The bottom line is, folks – VMware has the best product at every pricepoint for every customer, whether you are enterprise or mid-market or small.
3) VMware is blowing away the competition and extending their lead in terms of unique vision for the future as well as unique capabilities for the present.
- VMware has the strategic message and vision for large customers, i.e. enabling them to transform their datacenters into highly efficient, agile private clouds. VMware also has a unique and compelling offer to SMB, i.e. enterprise-class, ‘always-on IT’ at SMB affordability.
- VMware offers the best economic value at every pricepoint. VMware is already the leader in cost per application virtualized. VMware is extending on their lead by delivering amazing new savings to customers – 30% more consolidation, 50% storage savings, 20% power savings.
- If the competition wants a feature comparison, bring it on!! VMware is delivering groundbreaking new capabilities for both large and small customers – VMotion is old news folks; it’s about Fault Tolerance, it’s about application security, it’s about integrated data protection, integrated power management, it’s about Storage VMotion, it’s about DRS and many new capabilities.
- If you’re out there wondering about if Microsoft or Citrix is catching up then you can end that conversation right now, once and for all, with the vSphere release. VMware has dramatically distanced themselves from the competition. The competition debate is over.
So don’t wait another minute. Go check out the new vSphere release today. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:36 am
Mike. We all want to move to vSphere as fast as we can, however there may be any number of reasons why we can't move straight away.
Thought I saw somewhere that VI3 would be withdrawn from sale as soon as vSphere was released. That may prove difficult for people that have standardized on VI3 and may still wish to purchase new servers up until such time as they are ready to move everything to VI4.
What is your understanding on when VI3 will be withdrawn from sale?
Thanks in advance
April 21st, 2009 at 8:41 am
I've yet to fully check out the presentation is vsphere a “private cloud tool”?
April 21st, 2009 at 9:36 am
[...] VMware Launches vSphere – http://www.mikedipetrillo.com/mikedvirtualization/2009/04/vmware-launches-vsphere.html [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 9:55 am
[...] Mikedipetrillo.com – VMware Launches vSphere [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Marketecture hype.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
[...] D has a great blog entry about some of the reasons to upgrade… but he says Upgrade NOW!!! (emphasis his). Sorry Mike, [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 4:47 pm
[...] not sure if they need to upgrade or are considering other alternatives, check out Mike D’s post. For a more conservative viewpoint check out Eric Seibert’s post Upgrading to VMware vSphere: [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 8:10 pm
No. Pretty sure the product lives up to this. Would love to see you prove otherwise.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
vSphere is the collection of next generation VMware products. It includes the stuff you're used to from VMware (ESX, Virtual Center, and all of the management products like Lifecycle Manager, etc). It can be used to build a cloud so you'll hear that term attached to it. For people using VI3 today you can think of it as VI4 – one kick butt upgrade.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
When vSphere starts selling (later this quarter) then those are the licenses you'll buy. We'll still have updates and will be shipping VI3. You can downgrade your vSphere licenses to VI3 to keep on that environment while you plan out your transition. The downgrade is easy and is self service through the new licensing portal going online soon.
Hope that helps!
April 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Might be some possible areas for minor clarification: Like what “no extra charge – it is all free” means if you want the attractive Host Profiles, Large CPUs/Mem or vSwitch features. Perhaps “nearly free”…. Also the “upgrade NOW” might benefit from a caveat to look at the vsphere-migration-prerequisites-checklist.pdf for VMware products not yet supported, or all of the servers they may have to upgrade first (64-bit only), no 2.5 in env, etc. Might also recommend healthy burn-in and testing as usual for a major 'OS' upgrade.
Don't get me wrong, I am very optimistic about the new launch, there are quite a few features customers have been asking for for quite some time; just want to be sure normal sanity is applied
April 21st, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Host profiles, distributed virtual switch, and 3rd party multi-path is all you don't get “for free” if you're on current support and have an enterprise license. It's all spelled out here: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/edit....
Yes, there are pre-reqs. First get off the really old stuff (2.5). Second, get off really old servers (32-bit only). Remember, when we're talking 64-bit we mean the stuff with 64-bit extensions. That's pretty much every server built in the last 3 – 4 years. The only 64-bit only chip that Intel makes is the Itanium and that's not supported. Again, it's the ones with 64-bit extensions which means you probably don't have to upgrade a thing.
Testing is definitely recommended which is part of a normal upgrade procedure. Just saying you should get started down that road as soon as this thing ships to get the most benefit.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Agreed. Thanks, Mike. Just amazing how often we run into these in the field. Or even SRM, or Lab Manager (not as often, yet..)
April 21st, 2009 at 9:56 pm
[...] VMware Launches vSphere Apr [...]
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
too biased
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:56 am
First, I work for VMware. I say that in the tip right of my blog.
Second, stop the stupid anonymous comments. Your comment is pretty
useless anonymous.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Hi Mike:
I checked out the vSphere presentation and even a white paper (http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vsphere_pricing...). I don't see where it said that will start from free. Could you please clarify this aspect? Our company is moving slowly towards virtualization/Cloud Computing direction and I will like to know this bit of information.
Thanks.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Sorry for taking so long to get back. ESXi will continue to be free. You can see the feature comparison of free to the pay for products here: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/edit....
May 11th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
[...] VMware partners line up for vSphere launch VMware vows to overhaul data center with ‘cloud OS’ VMware Launches vSphere One man’s take on the vSphere launch VMware Unveils vSphere VMware’s version of data center [...]
May 21st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I don't think that VMware has resolve the issue of high prices. What is your reaction to the following blog post.
http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive...