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vmware cost
Dear experts,
I am looking for feedback on this situation I want to have 4 exsi hosts with dual core that will run 50 vms. From the vmware licensing if I want to run esxi 7 version with vcenter what will be the right budget for this solution with out adding the physical cost just the vmware cost and the veeam cost . I also heard that i do not need to buy backup solution as esxi has its its own vm backup using vcenter.
If some has went through the same situation please let me know what to expect and add for annual cost.
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@andrew
no hard feeling but data backup needs to be continuous so snapshots are basically a nogo. we use replication and possibly local snapshots for history nowadays. the fact that vendors do it that way does not make it right. most of my platforms can be redeployed automatically which makes backuping system disks entirely useless as well.
additionally, such backup strategies proovably simply do not work or endup crashing machines that have significant write loads. and they tend to provide folks with a false sensation of security. in many cases such as db servers, chances are the backup would be in inconsistent state and the server would not restart without quite a lot of work and significant data loss.
what works on paper does not always work irl. what does not will definitely eventually break.
no hard feeling but data backup needs to be continuous so snapshots are basically a nogo. we use replication and possibly local snapshots for history nowadays. the fact that vendors do it that way does not make it right. most of my platforms can be redeployed automatically which makes backuping system disks entirely useless as well.
additionally, such backup strategies proovably simply do not work or endup crashing machines that have significant write loads. and they tend to provide folks with a false sensation of security. in many cases such as db servers, chances are the backup would be in inconsistent state and the server would not restart without quite a lot of work and significant data loss.
what works on paper does not always work irl. what does not will definitely eventually break.
@skullnobrains that's how the industry is at present, and has been for 24 years!
and I'm not sure what issues you are referring to with correct management in place, and enterprise hardware, we've not seen these issues you are describing with our large client base.
There are a few emerging technologies which do not use snapshots, because they've gone back to Agent's in VMs for faster and superior backup and restore! e.g. not image backups, file and folders type backups.
This is one product
https://www.n-able.com/
So please suggest a Backup solution to the Asker, because by your comment, you've just ruled out MOST if not ALL backup solutions for vSphere.
So how does the asker backup ? (easily) and restore.
and I'm not sure what issues you are referring to with correct management in place, and enterprise hardware, we've not seen these issues you are describing with our large client base.
There are a few emerging technologies which do not use snapshots, because they've gone back to Agent's in VMs for faster and superior backup and restore! e.g. not image backups, file and folders type backups.
This is one product
https://www.n-able.com/
So please suggest a Backup solution to the Asker, because by your comment, you've just ruled out MOST if not ALL backup solutions for vSphere.
So how does the asker backup ? (easily) and restore.
i could not care less about the industry. doing better than blindly following white papers is the reason why i have a job. many of my past choices that were considered with great disrespect in the past turned out to become industry standards later on.
we need to be critical, and make enlightened choices. that is what drives the industry standards over time. not the frozen-minded board of some giant company. (this last comment is NOT targetted at vmware btw. i do respect their capability to innovate or at least incorporate interesting stuff in their products)
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real life suggestions need a little more information than just "backup for vsphere". if you read my previous comments, you will find one very reasonable use case for veem.
in some cases, the backup can be performed at the storage level. but that depends on the storage used.
in some cases such as sql servers and mail servers that store mail in internal bases such as exchange server, the backup can only be performed efficiently by replicating the data at the application level.
filesystem level backups are not necessarily significantly better but at least they seldom end up [tc]rashing the system. for the record, many of them rely on filesystem level snapshots as this is the only way to achieve some degree of decent consistency.
backuping whole vms at the vcenter level is my recommendation for a small company that plays with a bunch of windows boxes that do not write much and have no money to hire some serious IT staff.
many companies simply do not need that or probably should reserve that kind of backup for system disks and maybe a few essentially but not entirely frozen machines that are administered manually.
btw, this is not THE industry standard any more if it ever was. merely a common but foolish recommendation such as most dogmatic all purpoise advice. i know dozens of large companies (isps, banks, large hosting...) who moved away from said backuping years ago and will never turn back. i personally had automated install and cluster operations ready on every platform i worked on before virtualization came to fame and hence seldom used such methods.
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i know for a fact that you are well aware of the issues veem-like backuping may produce as you commented on multiple threads that dealt with the most common issues :
endless differential snapshots because the data is written to the snapshot faster than the snapshot could be reverted. bringing the performance to a crawl and preventing ulterior backups to ever work.
if additionally the software is dumb enough to continue spawning backup tasks while the previous one did not complete, this ends up in a machine crash, possibly days of outage to revert the snapshots depending on how long the admins took to notice. and in some cases data loss admittedly due in most cases to wrong manipulations performed by the admins while trying to put stuff back online too fast.
we need to be critical, and make enlightened choices. that is what drives the industry standards over time. not the frozen-minded board of some giant company. (this last comment is NOT targetted at vmware btw. i do respect their capability to innovate or at least incorporate interesting stuff in their products)
--
real life suggestions need a little more information than just "backup for vsphere". if you read my previous comments, you will find one very reasonable use case for veem.
in some cases, the backup can be performed at the storage level. but that depends on the storage used.
in some cases such as sql servers and mail servers that store mail in internal bases such as exchange server, the backup can only be performed efficiently by replicating the data at the application level.
filesystem level backups are not necessarily significantly better but at least they seldom end up [tc]rashing the system. for the record, many of them rely on filesystem level snapshots as this is the only way to achieve some degree of decent consistency.
backuping whole vms at the vcenter level is my recommendation for a small company that plays with a bunch of windows boxes that do not write much and have no money to hire some serious IT staff.
many companies simply do not need that or probably should reserve that kind of backup for system disks and maybe a few essentially but not entirely frozen machines that are administered manually.
btw, this is not THE industry standard any more if it ever was. merely a common but foolish recommendation such as most dogmatic all purpoise advice. i know dozens of large companies (isps, banks, large hosting...) who moved away from said backuping years ago and will never turn back. i personally had automated install and cluster operations ready on every platform i worked on before virtualization came to fame and hence seldom used such methods.
--
i know for a fact that you are well aware of the issues veem-like backuping may produce as you commented on multiple threads that dealt with the most common issues :
endless differential snapshots because the data is written to the snapshot faster than the snapshot could be reverted. bringing the performance to a crawl and preventing ulterior backups to ever work.
if additionally the software is dumb enough to continue spawning backup tasks while the previous one did not complete, this ends up in a machine crash, possibly days of outage to revert the snapshots depending on how long the admins took to notice. and in some cases data loss admittedly due in most cases to wrong manipulations performed by the admins while trying to put stuff back online too fast.
not to mention the frequent inability to start whatever service which is left in inconsistent state because the snapshot would need to be taken in the same system call as the sync simultaneously on the host and guest.
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a backup system's job is to help you recover stuff in case of outage or attack. veem can do that in some cases (quite inefficiently). just not all cases.
a backup system's job is to help you recover stuff in case of outage or attack. veem can do that in some cases (quite inefficiently). just not all cases.
If you want the management features of vcenter then the "Free" version is out and it has other limitations as well.
I also agree with Andrew that most all backup solutions are going to need vcenter. Licensing will be based on the number of processors. Also you need to figure out if you will need vrealize as that is also licensed separate in most cases.
So you will need to know how many processors and other details when you call and speak to a vendor to get a quote.
Just let the vendor (such as CDW or insight) know the quote is for budgeting purposes and they will help you.
Without knowing all the details of your environment and your requirements etc. no on here will be able to give you a good price point for your budget as there are many factors in relation to your environment that will change the price.
For example what is the HA requirement, Backup requirements, number of processors, reporting needs.
Licensing for Products in vSphere (vmware.com)
VMware vSphere Compute Virtualization
I also agree with Andrew that most all backup solutions are going to need vcenter. Licensing will be based on the number of processors. Also you need to figure out if you will need vrealize as that is also licensed separate in most cases.
So you will need to know how many processors and other details when you call and speak to a vendor to get a quote.
Just let the vendor (such as CDW or insight) know the quote is for budgeting purposes and they will help you.
Without knowing all the details of your environment and your requirements etc. no on here will be able to give you a good price point for your budget as there are many factors in relation to your environment that will change the price.
For example what is the HA requirement, Backup requirements, number of processors, reporting needs.
Licensing for Products in vSphere (vmware.com)
VMware vSphere Compute Virtualization
ASKER
Thank you all I got the idea, I can license per host or just vcenter instances. I will definately contact the reseller to get this going.
you can also and probably should use the free version. you will be limited to 2 physical cpus per physical host if my memory is correct and will not have a vcenter. with 2 physical hosts, chances are you do not need vcenter which would only bring additionnal complexity and an extra spof.
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as mentionned above, the backups will not be covered.
veem is suitable for machines with low writing rates that write mildly important data that can be recovered otherwise if needed. that covers pretty much nil.
basically, it will do an very decent job at backuping SYSTEM disks of oses that use automatic updates. you should setup updates and backups at different times.
backuping data disks by snapshoting them ranges from inefficient to asking for trouble. the worldwide waste cost of such solutions is unfathomable but probably in the range of the overall resources used by multiple fully developped country both in terms of hardware and energy.
i do not know the current price but it would probably be around 3 or 4 k yearly, maybe less if you subscribe for multiple years.
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additional notes
i do not know what you expect to run or what kind of physical machines but 50 vms on 2 hosts is quite a lot.
i strongly advice you never get a paid subscription from any company that cannot provide a simple and clear publicly available pricing. these tend to be either run by crooks or lousy salesmen that just like to make themselves needed rather than actually useful.