What is the Upside to VMware to the SMB?
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I suspect that much of it comes down to things like ESXi being what they are used to, it's what they have always heard people using and discussing, they have never really evaluated the options or everyone they know uses it and they do not feel that they can say anything that would be perceived as not supportive.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The SMB does not believe in Linux based anything - that fact alone kills XenServer unless the IT person in that spot at that time decides they want to do it themselves.
Yet the SMB all think that ESXi is Linux. It's a weird dichotomy of misinformation.
oh - I guess I'm not reading the same posts as you (definitely not as many as you) I haven't seen them equate ESXi with Linux.
I see it a lot. Partially it comes from RHEL 2.1 being a part of ESX through the end of the 4.x era. And a little comes from a German lawsuit where a Linux developer claims that codes was stolen (he claims like one tiny bit and people run with it to say that one line of code means that the whole thing is a Linux OS). But mostly it comes from people confusing all command lines as being Linux, I've even heard people say that! In the same way that people used to think all command lines were DOS.
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Something else that goes along the same lines is many SMBs saying they have to use Windows because of some software. This just happened to me when I had that interview the other day. They are mostly a Windows shop because they need to use Microsoft Dynamics. The reasoning was that it was "the only ERP system that would work with food companies." The company makes spices for meat processing, and just normal spices. Grocery stores take their spices and put their names on them as the "generic" spices.
I'd be willing to bet that if you took the cost of licensing every Windows desktop,laptop, and server that they have, you could have paid for a decent ERP system that would not lock you in to a certain platform. I don't really believe Dynamics was the only one that would work, but I haven't done research on it.
Even a custom solution that costs 75-100K would most likely be cheaper in the long run.
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Whoops, MLN posting for me again
Here is a discussion on just this from some time ago here. I remembered that "DOS" was in the title.
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@johnhooks said:
Something else that goes along the same lines is many SMBs saying they have to use Windows because of some software. This just happened to me when I had that interview the other day. They are mostly a Windows shop because they need to use Microsoft Dynamics. The reasoning was that it was "the only ERP system that would work with food companies." The company makes spices for meat processing, and just normal spices. Grocery stores take their spices and put their names on them as the "generic" spices.
I'd be willing to bet that if you took the cost of licensing every Windows desktop,laptop, and server that they have, you could have paid for a decent ERP system that would not lock you in to a certain platform. I don't really believe Dynamics was the only one that would work, but I haven't done research on it.
Even a custom solution that costs 75-100K would most likely be cheaper in the long run.
And honestly, what a ridiculous thing to say : That there is only one ERP that can work with food companies? That's insane. Obviously that isn't true. That they thought that they could say it and not look like a complete idiot is the scary part.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
Something else that goes along the same lines is many SMBs saying they have to use Windows because of some software. This just happened to me when I had that interview the other day. They are mostly a Windows shop because they need to use Microsoft Dynamics. The reasoning was that it was "the only ERP system that would work with food companies." The company makes spices for meat processing, and just normal spices. Grocery stores take their spices and put their names on them as the "generic" spices.
I'd be willing to bet that if you took the cost of licensing every Windows desktop,laptop, and server that they have, you could have paid for a decent ERP system that would not lock you in to a certain platform. I don't really believe Dynamics was the only one that would work, but I haven't done research on it.
Even a custom solution that costs 75-100K would most likely be cheaper in the long run.
And honestly, what a ridiculous thing to say : That there is only one ERP that can work with food companies? That's insane. Obviously that isn't true. That they thought that they could say it and not look like a complete idiot is the scary part.
It was scary. It's upsetting because you know that you could help them and make everything much easier and better, but you'll never be allowed to because you will either make them look bad or they just won't believe you.
The other scary thing was the owners son-in-law was one of the "systems admins" of this company. While the guy may be very capable, in my experience it's usually the exact opposite.
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It is amazing (and sad) how often in the SMB you can't recommend things because it will "make someone look bad." I've never seen this on any scale in the enterprise (people understand that factors change, that not everyone has all of the same information, that not everyone has the same level of expertise), only in the SMB. So much of the SMB is about "protecting bad decision making" whether it is a peer, a manager or the owner. Everyone is hiding bad decisions and processes from each other. SMBs are so political.
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The OP's question is so leading I wouldn't dare put a defence of VMware on here
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@Carnival-Boy said:
The OP's question is so leading I wouldn't dare put a defence of VMware on here
I tried not to make it leading, but needed to explain why I felt it didn't make sense. If I left all of that out, people would say that I was just setting people up to tear them apart with prepared reasoning. There is no winning when the answer is so clear, I guess, other than just to assume bad things about people promoting it.
He needs the explanations of why I feel one way. If any of that is wrong, it wouldn't be leading at all. It's only leading if it is true.
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There is no defense of VMWare that is practical, none. As a solution, when the hypervisor is free from every other competitor, the only rational response is that the pricing model is there because their foot is in the door at some many businesses that they can charge it.
So the same people who are stuck with VMWare promote it as this wonderful product that isn't bad. Which it may very well be a good Hypervisor.
But paying for the hypervisor is insanity, when you can get every other hypervisor for free.
Sure you have the option to pay for support with the others, but only with VMWare does support include system patches and upgrade rights.
Where as with the others, completely free of charge. It's a different pricing model.
Even with VMWare you still often need a separate tool for backup functionality like Veeam or Unitrends.
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Well, maybe not in a greenfield. In an existing business with an existing VMware infrastructure dating from when it was highly viable there are reasons to have it. But to push it on unsuspecting virtualization newbies that don't know any better based on no stated need that would suggest a reason to even consider VMware.....
And I kept asking in those threads if anyone had an actual reason instead of just snark to cover up their recommendations and... crickets.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Well, maybe not in a greenfield. In an existing business with an existing VMware infrastructure dating from when it was highly viable there are reasons to have it. But to push it on unsuspecting virtualization newbies that don't know any better based on no stated need that would suggest a reason to even consider VMware.....
And I kept asking in those threads if anyone had an actual reason instead of just snark to cover up their recommendations and... crickets.
That's my point, they're promoting it for either personal gain, or because they simply want to promote it as it's what they know. It's all politics.
If for one instance they'd read what has been repeatedly posted, its not Paying for support that is the issue, it's paying for a fully functional hypervisor that is the issue.
Which at the base level of VMWare above free, you are getting a gimped product.
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Personally, I think the cost of VMware is trivial. It would be a factor in my choice of hypervisor, but a very minor one. I'm more likely to look at different products and simply decide which I like best.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Personally, I think the cost of VMware is trivial.
We all do, but why spend any money to "get less" is the question. Even assuming VMware were actually free for Essentials, why deploy it?
But there is a hidden cost that needs to be considered too: the licensing. You have to track it, apply it, risk outages from it, deal with their convoluted website for updates, changes, etc. Huge? No. But the licensing alone can take more time and effort to administer than a competitor's entire product.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
It would be a factor in my choice of hypervisor, but a very minor one. I'm more likely to look at different products and simply decide which I like best.
If all it meant was "spend $500" vs. "not spend $500", larger shops could effectively ignore the cost. I totally agree. It's trivial compared to the effort involved and other considerations.
But the $500 version of ESXi is still heavily crippled. It doesn't have failover, HA, vmotion, storage vmotion, backups, can't go to more than six CPUs, can't go to more than three hosts, doesn't have RAID, doesn't have RAIN and other basics that we expect from other systems.
To do that we are looking at more like $10,000 and we still get limitations, just not as many. And even a moderate sized shop normally sees $10,000 + lots of licensing rigmarole as non-trivial. The licensing issues alone represent a risk vector to add into stability equations. Lots of us have seen blips in stability from that, VMware doesn't approach stability with the same rigour as their competitors.
Even the NTG lab is 400% the scale that VMware Essentials or Essentials Plus will support, not including any of our production. That's a bit crazy. I know several home environments that are out of VMware's scale.
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For how many shops is $500 something that can just be ignored? When I see posts it seems like people are constantly fighting to get the budget for a single Windows Server license even when it is pretty necessary. Spending an extra $500 anywhere, no matter what it is on, does not seem like it would often be trivial. If a company only need the $500 license, then it can only have three servers, tops. How many companies are both so small that they only need three servers maximum but have enough discretionary income that they do not see $500 as a somewhat significant line item?
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@Dashrender said:
The SMB does not believe in Linux based anything - that fact alone kills XenServer unless the IT person in that spot at that time decides they want to do it themselves.
I believe this is the biggest problem. There are shops with "IT Professionals" who are just going with what a vendor told them and probably had someone help them set it up. And this might be why SMB doesn't like support unless it's paid or from an MSP, because whoever is in the department can't do it without help anyway.
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I've seen what happens in SMB when you need consistent, pricey license renewals to keep things updated - oftentimes, things will just stop getting updated after a while.
I also think people choose the "premium name-brand option" when they don't know much about the options available, but know they will need to depend on whatever they use.
Some people are also just much more susceptible to advertising, which VMWare has more of a budget for.
Lastly there's good ol' cognitive dissonance... Same reason why people think it's reasonable to recommend Meraki gear over Ubiquiti for SMB. If you've been using a hammer that has a $500/year price tag for 5+ years, your brain isn't going to like the idea that you could have been using a regular hammer the entire time and will start justifying why regular hammers can't be trusted to put nails into walls. See: Monster cables.
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@WingCreative said:
I've seen what happens in SMB when you need consistent, pricey license renewals to keep things updated - oftentimes, things will just stop getting updated after a while.
I also think people choose the "premium name-brand option" when they don't know much about the options available, but know they will need to depend on whatever they use.
Some people are also just much more susceptible to advertising, which VMWare has more of a budget for.
Lastly there's good ol' cognitive dissonance... Same reason why people think it's reasonable to recommend Meraki gear over Ubiquiti for SMB. If you've been using a hammer that has a $500/year price tag for 5+ years, your brain isn't going to like the idea that you could have been using a regular hammer the entire time and will start justifying why regular hammers can't be trusted to put nails into walls. See: Monster cables.
^ This.
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@WingCreative said:
I've seen what happens in SMB when you need consistent, pricey license renewals to keep things updated - oftentimes, things will just stop getting updated after a while.
That can be a big risk. The same risk that comes with using Windows, Cisco networking gear or most SAN or NAS options, for example. The company has to be committed to maintaining support or else they might lose the ability to keep getting updates that they need for security, stability or compatibility. The longer that they go without support, the harder a migration away generally becomes, too. And often the cost of getting back under support increases as well.
It's a huge financial commitment that the company makes up front. They commit to one of these things:
- Migrating off of the platform.
- Running without any support option.
- Paying a support penalty.
- Paying for support indefinitely.
Almost always at least one of those four things is going to happen when something like VMware is chosen. Not that those are all bad, many enterprises will pay for support indefinitely and have no intention to ever do otherwise and there is essentially no risk that they will be unable to do so. But in the SMB when often the company fails to make payroll, that cash flow risk can cascade to things like being unable to maintain necessary support contracts and once the agreements are breached or lapsed the penalties generally make the situation worse and worse.
