Feb 10
I honestly don’t know the answer to this question but I’ve already been asked by a few customers so I’m opening it for discussion. If you read VMware’s current EULA (Section 1.6), it describes a processor to include up to 6 cores.
Intel has announced a sweet 8-core Nehelem-EX Xeon and it will be interesting how this will apply to ESX. As mentioned, I don’t know how ESX will license on it but with the processors hitting the street this quarter , we won’t have to wait long to find out.
I will, of course, post additional information as soon as it becomes publically available.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Depends how long it took them to revise this when Dunnington came along!
February 11th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Best place to go for information on this is here: http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/multicore.html. Notice the last question in the FAQ. Also notice that the change to support hexacore licenses was on September 15, 2008 – right around the time hexacore was getting ready to ship.
February 11th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Before Dunnington, it said 4-cores in the Multicore Policy. Before the chips actually shipped, it changed to 6. Before that, it was 2 CPUs and before quad-cores came out it changed to 4. I don’t expect this to change with 8-cores, either. Just consider this equivalent to VMware dropping its prices every time more dense chips come out. =)
February 11th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Thanks for the assist Mike, I knew I read that link but didn’t have it bookmarked.