Shulou(Shulou.com)06/02 Report--

VMware's new license fee will damage AMD's 64-core EPYC Rome. AMD's EPYC Rome processors are known for being multi-core, not to mention the much lower price per chip core, a big advantage the company relies on in its battle with Intel for data center market share. However, a statement announced today by VMware seems to have somewhat undermined this advantage: the license fee charged for the company's virtualization software for CPU,VMware, which has more than 32 cores, will actually double.

The new initiative applies to all VMware software; given that the Dell company has about 75 per cent of the server virtualization market, the change will have a broad and far-reaching impact on data center processors with a large number of cores, such as AMD's EPYC Rome. Intel will also be affected, upgrading its processors to the 56-core Cooper Lake model (production is scheduled to start in the first half of 2020).

In the corporate world, software often charges a license fee based on the number of CPU cores or sockets, which means that software customers must pay a fixed fee based on the number of CPU cores or CPU sockets on which they want to run the software. This means that hardware price is often a secondary factor to consider compared to software license costs.

In terms of software license fees charged by the number of cores, processors with faster cores often win with total cost of ownership (TCO) because they make better use of software licenses. In short, a faster core means higher performance per license, thus reducing the need for additional licenses (and reducing the overall cost of the server platform).

And these fees are not small: under the current pricing model, for example, the cost of each license for the Oracle Enterprise Database license is as high as $47500. Other Oracle applications cost as much as $300000 per license. However, Oracle uses a complex matrix to derive the final pricing, so based on the number of cores each CPU has, each CPU may require multiple licenses, resulting in a licensing model similar to charging per core number. At the same time, other companies charge enterprise software license fees entirely according to the number of CPU cores.

In the past, Intel Xeon processors were generally considered better for this type of core-based license because of the higher performance of each core.

However, this is a double-sided blade. While some software charges license fees by core quantity, others charge license fees by CPU quantity. So regardless of the number of cores, a single processor is charged a single license fee. Data centers and companies running such software can really benefit from EPYC's more core advantages: if you pay a fee for the entire processor, it is obviously more cost-effective to pay for EPYC's 64 cores than Intel's "just" 28 cores.

AMD's EPYC Rome used to be cost-effective for VMware because it used to charge only one license fee per CPU, regardless of the number of cores. VMware's current pricing depends on the product, but the price of each license is as high as $7472. By contrast, AMD's high-end 64-core EPYC 7742 has a license fee of "only" $6950.

AMD's Rome crammed up to 64 cores and 128 threads in a single CPU socket not only provides a new level of performance density, but also allows customers to gain more value from virtualization license fees.

Unfortunately, this trend has changed because of today's VMware announcement: it will now charge two licenses for any CPU with more than 32 cores. This actually doubled the VMware license fee for AMD's 48-core and 64-core chips. This change applies to single-socket and dual-socket servers, so dual-socket EPYC systems with 48-core or 64-core chips now require four licenses instead of two.

VMware said in a statement: "Today we have announced a significant update to our pricing model based on CPU volume, demonstrating our commitment to continuing to meet customer needs in a growing industry landscape. This new pricing model will provide more choices for our customers and enable us to better serve our customers. Now we will still use the per-CPU method for any software product that uses a license fee per CPU quantity, but we require a license to apply to up to 32 physical cores. If a CPU has more than 32 cores, an additional CPU license is required. "

The impact of this change on data center operators using 48-core (and more) AMD chips will be immediate, but Intel customers will not be affected, at least for now. Intel's high-end general-purpose server chips currently hold up to 28 cores per socket; while the company does offer 48-core Cascade Lake-AP chips, those chips don't seem to be much sought after outside of specialized applications, so they will have little impact on the broader market.

Intel will eventually switch to the 56-core Cooper Lake processors scheduled for production in the first half of this year, but it is unclear whether they can be considered a pricing model for general-purpose chips.

An article published by ServeTheHome last year highlighted that switching to denser chips heralds an imminent change in licensing. Given the licensing changes of market leader VMware, other software vendors can be expected to follow suit and change their fee structures in the coming months.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.