VMware vRAM Licensing Changes

Following lots of correspondance from users affected by the vRAM licensing model announced with vSphere 5 (including an 87 page communities posting), VMware have listened and responded by changing the model to make the licensing a more realistic proposition for licensed users. Highlights of the changes are:

• vRAM has been capped at 96GB per VM, so VMs with the new 1TB maximum would no longer be mega-bucks!
• vRAM entitlements have been increased across all licensing tiers.
• Usage now calculated on 12 month average allocated vRAM, not high tide allocation mark, protecting users from short term usage spikes.
• vRAM for the free ESXi hypervizor has been increased to 32GB, up from the previous 8GB.

Eric Siebert of vSphere-Land fame has an excellent detailed post on this: http://vsphere-land.com/news/vmware-has-a-change-of-heart-on-licensing.html