The future of VMware NSX–Transformers and licensing update

A couple of days ago, VMware announced the new release of NSX-MH (Multi-hypervisor) also known as Transformers – Codename Bumbelbee. Which supports now KVM and vSphere as hypervisor choices and being able to share the same transport zone. This picture displays how it looks like.

Also you can now have the Edge installed on a bare-metal, which then allows us to create our own hardware vTep.

Now also VMware introduced licensing models on NSX-V (which is still for VMware ESXi only) into three different editions.

Standard Edition: Automates IT workflows, bringing agility to the data center network and reducing network operating costs and complexity.

Advanced Edition: Standard Edition plus a fundamentally more secure data center with micro-segmentation. Helps secure the data center to the highest levels, while automating IT provisioning of security.

Enterprise Edition: Advanced Edition plus networking and security across multiple domains. Enables the data center network to extend across multiple sites and connect to high-throughput physical workloads.-

Also some interesting about the licensing: All three editions are available per socket on a perpetual basis. The advanced edition is available as a per-user offering (to align with virtual desktop deployments). The Enterprise edition is also available on a per-VM term basis.

Existing customers will be moved into Enterprise edition when they move to the new licensing model. You can see the differences between the editions here –> http://www.vmware.com/products/nsx/compare.html?mid=1824&eid=CVMW2000000369654

And more detailed information about the editions and feature matrix here –> https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2145269

Also according to: http://vcloud.sx/new-nsx-license-tier-thoughts-transformers/

Where previously the list (USD) for NSX was $5,996 per Socket the new editions come in at $1,995, $4,995 and $6,995 per Socket. The Standard edition is well priced but taking a look through the Matrix in the official KB you are getting an extremely slimmed down version of NSX…short of the bells and whistles that make it the awesome SDN platform that it is, however I’m sure the feature set will be attractive for some.

So one of the main reasons that people get NSX is the firewall parts, which is only part of the Advanced licensing which makes sense for VDI as well. Standard gives distributed switching and routing, which is also something that people should take a closer look at!