Here is the comparison of licensing and pricing for VMware vSphere announced on April 21, 2009 versus VMware Infrastructure 3.
Essentials ($995 for 3 servers)
- $995 for 3 servers OR $165 per processor
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit: $2,995 for 3 servers
- Savings: $2,000 (67%)
Essentials Plus ($2,995 for 3 servers)
- $2,995 for 3 servers OR $499 per processor
- Includes High Availability and Data Protection
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard High Availability Acceleration Kit: $5,995 for two 2-processor nodes
- Savings: $3,000 + $2,995 for VI Standard + $2,495 for VI HA Add-on = $8,490 (74%)
Standard ($795 per processor)
- Up to 6 cores per processor
- Includes High Availability and Thin Provisioning
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard: $2,995 for two 2-processor nodes
- Savings: $1,405 per 2 processors (47%)
Advanced ($2,245 per processor)
- Up to 12 cores per processor
- Standard Edition + Availability (Live Migration, Continuous Availability, Network Security Zoning, Data Protection)
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard: $2,995 for two 2-processor nodes plus features above
- Price Difference: $1,495 per 2 processors (50%) for features in the Availability package
Enterprise ($2,875 per processor)
- Up to 6 cores per processor
- Advanced Edition + Automated Resource Management (Dynamic Resource Allocation, Power Management, Storage Live Migration)
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Enterprise: $5,750 for two 2-processor nodes
- No price change per 2-processor nodes
Enterprise Plus ($3,495 per processor)
- Up to 12 cores per processor
- Enterprise Edition + Simplified Operations (Third-party Multipathing, Distributed Switch, Host Configuration Controls)
- Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Enterprise: $5,750 for two 2-processor nodes plus features above
- Price Difference: $1,240 for features in the Simplified Operations package
Overall it looks like VMware is making pricing more aggressive for SMBs where it has the most price pressure from the free Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Hyper-V. To learn more, please see the official VMware vSphere 4 Pricing, Packaging and Licensing Overview.
