TSM licensing and VMWare

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spiffy

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in an effort to save money on stupid tsm licensing (IBM really really really should remodel the way the charge....) on our VM farms, we want to know if we can only license 1 Node, then have some script run that moves the VMs from unlicensed nodes to this one, back it up and move it off again when the backup is done.

to me, this seems like a nightmare, but when you are talking about a 4 node vm farm, with 16 cores in each node, licensing TSm extended, tsm for sql and tsm for exchange on 64 cores can be kinda not cheap....

so is anyone doing what i typed above? I know we are going to look at VRangerPro and other solutions(hopefully cheaper) for backing up VMware, but we dont want to loose file level restore ability either...

oh the insanity.....

thanks

James
 
whoa, i was told by an IBM person (i probably have the email still floating around somewhere) that it was by core also with VMhosts... and i specifically asked if my VM's have SQL on them or exchange, do i need to license each host with those licenses, and the answer was yes, because there is the chance they will move from host to host....
Unless this changed from last year to what you are saying?
 
You have to license your SQL or Exchange on Active only. You should not be charged for the "CHANCE" they are moved because if moved it is only for active. This is what i would do:

1. Count your processor on ESX host. Lets say this is 4 slots with quad core.
2. What percentage of your ESX is used for SQL or Exchange. So if 4 VM and 1 is sql then you should be charged just 1 processor PVU for your server since only 25% of it is used for SQL. Hope this helps...If any questions just PM me.
 
Our VM environment consists of 8 xSeries 3850's with 4 dual core cpus each (8 cores each) this equates to 64 cores total for this environment

there are about 175 vms hosted on this environment, regular windows server 2003 vms, some with SQL 2000 and SQL 2005 installed, some with exchange installed.
I am not sure the exact number of SQL servers, but lets say there are 16vms with SQL on them.

if i read your post right, i only need to license a quarter of the whole environment for tsm for sql?

anyway, if this is the case, IBM is reaming us really good on licensing costs/ maintenance......
 
i have to disagree with you on this...

I think that is just saying different vendors have different ways of defining their processors, but IBM Software Group doesnt care, because they define a processor as a core, not a chip or gidget or whatever.

if you look on the right hand side of that page, under PVU tables: by Server Brand and Type, you will see IBM has 3850 listed as the following

PVUs per Core - 100 for Single Core, 50 for Dual Core.

so 1 of my 3850s has 4 Dual Core CPUS, that is 4 physical chips, but IBM software group says "hey we license by core, not chip for 3850s"

so this equates to 8 cores total for that server or 400 Value Units..

or

Important definitions
[FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]In the rapidly changing world of technology, old words may take on new meanings. Following are four key definitions that all IBM software sellers need to understand in order to fully explain IBM’s software licensing to customers: [/FONT]​


[FONT=Arial,Arial]• [/FONT]
[/FONT]
Core [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]- A functional unit within a computing device that interprets and executes software instructions. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial]

[FONT=Arial,Arial]• [/FONT]​
​

[/FONT]
Chip [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]– electronic circuitry, containing but not limited to at least one core, on a silicon wafer. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial]

[FONT=Arial,Arial]• [/FONT]​
​

[/FONT]
Socket [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]– the mount that secures a chip to a motherboard. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial]

[FONT=Arial,Arial]• [/FONT]​
​

[/FONT]
Processor [FONT=Arial,Arial][FONT=Arial,Arial]– There is currently disagreement in the computer industry over the definition of a processor. IBM defines a processor as the core. For example, a dual-core chip has two processors on it. [/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Arial,Arial]
[/FONT]
James
​
 
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I have talked to our rep because we are going to add about 1500 VM to our TSM environment and this is what we have gathered:

1. You are correct about the core. They feel that you get better use from software if more cores so you pay more
2. If you only use 25% of your ESX host as SQL then you should be able to just pay for the 25% used for SQL.

This is why we have a forum and knowledge transfer.... :)
 
You could just license a couple of the blades for TDPSQL in a separate ESX cluster to reduce cost.

What are your thoughts on VCB? What type of SAN infrastructure do you use?
 
VCB seems to work well with small environments because you dont have a lot of SAN configuration to do and less proxies. But if you are doing a big environment i would recommend putting clients on the system unless you have cpu and memory concerns. We are a major TSM show but Avamar seems great for systems but can get up in cost. If you also do VCB i would recommend the StorServer VCB Agent. it is a slick tool and it works pretty nice.
 
Oh don't say that... Mgmt is considering a migration from TSM to Avamar. We currently have 450 VM's on 40 HP blades (C-Class) using HP EVA's. The TSM client does cause overhead, but not enought to worry about. How many proxies do you use per amount of VMs?

eperez507 said:
VCB seems to work well with small environments because you dont have a lot of SAN configuration to do and less proxies. But if you are doing a big environment i would recommend putting clients on the system unless you have cpu and memory concerns. We are a major TSM show but Avamar seems great for systems but can get up in cost. If you also do VCB i would recommend the StorServer VCB Agent. it is a slick tool and it works pretty nice.
Click to expand...
 
The amount of proxies you need are determined by the server and TB per hour. You need enought storage for the snap to the server for backing it up. I have been quoted for 4-8 TB about 30K per proxy and about 3-5 proxies. If you need a certain backup window you need more. Also I was against Avamar also but i will tell you something...for remote sites, NDMP ESPECIALLY, and some small VM env. it works great. If you ever get a chance POC Avamar on NDMP you will be amazed but Avamar has issues with over 5 Million Files on a server and large databases. They will even tell you this.
 
we are going to have to look at options for our VM environment, VRangerPro, StorServer, something to reduce costs i guess, due to our current TSM maintainance costs, we already are getting rid of TSM for SQL to save money, backing up to disk using SQL backup instead...

oh well... tis the way it goes in the IS world eh?
 
Indeed. We switched around 50% of our SQL TDPs to disk to disk backup. We then created SQL policies to pick up the .bak files and store them differently than the standard backups. After that we created seperate schedules to pick up the .bak files multiple times per day. Just depends on your needs. To be honest, I would rather pay per core versus per TB.

VRanger is a cool product, but you can do the same thing with scripting and VCB. You just get an interface. Unfortunately vSphere doesn't have the ability to do file level backup yet (through the VIC).
 
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