Lewis Holden, VMware market development manager at Ingram Micro, has seen a trend in the past two years of resellers continuing to grapple with changes to VMware licensing. This has been especially noticeable with the changes introduced by VMware with their new products – particularly vSphere 5, released last year.

"There are 3 types of licensing options available to a reseller: OEM, perpetual or hosting licenses,” Holden says.

"In our experience, clients who purchase OEM licenses are not always advised of their support and subscription expiry dates, or supported to make the next license decision as they re-evaluate their infrastructure and virtualisation requirements.

VMware's licensing changes have introduced a vRAM entitlement per CPU license; three of the five vSphere 5 editions have the same 32GB vRAM entitlement per CPU. This creates some confusion, as clients are often not sure whether they should consider the Essentials at one end of the scale, or Enterprise Plus at the other end.

The vSphere 5 licensing model shouldn't impact clients with higher licensing costs when they upgrade to vSphere 5. The short-lived usage ‘spikes' in development and testing do increase the 12-month average in a significant way – but a customer won't be required to pay for them in perpetuity.

"While vSphere 5 licensing can be a challenge, Ingram Micro has found working closely with resellers ensures they deliver value for their clients. This is particularly important due to the pervasiveness of virtual environments,” Holden says.

Contact Ingram Micro here about assistance.