VMWare to no longer sell perpetual licenses reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MisterBazz · 2023-12-13 16:48 Wow, I'm surprised! ​ ​ ^(No, not really.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixuser011 · 2023-12-13 17:01 they announced plans to do this years ago, nothing new. As long as they continue with VMUG, we're good Those with existing licenses aren't really affected, it's when they expire that you'll have to get new ones ---------------------------------------------------------------------- woundedbearhair · 2023-12-13 17:21 Broadcom will slowly kill VMWare another way, they are like Symantec used to be before they split into and it's where tech goes to die. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SPARC_Pile · 2023-12-13 17:46 Broadcom is the new version of CA and OpenText(Microfocus) They suck up software, squeeze customers for more money, and then put it in maintenance mode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Staltrad · 2023-12-13 17:47 The Adobe way! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TheFumingatzor · 2023-12-13 17:50 No shit? Broadcom does Broadcom things. More at 11. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Arphenyte · 2023-12-13 18:39 How's Virtual Box these days? It's been years since I last used it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thekrautboy · 2023-12-13 18:44 VirtualBox? Thats made by Oracle, a terrible company. VMware? Thats now owned by Broadcom, a terrible company. But they are not the same software or companies. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-13 18:47 Virtualbox is only a Type 2 hypervisor, it is not an equivalent alternative to ESXi, vCenter, or other VMWare Type 1 hypervisor options. The appropriate alternative would be Proxmox VE. Type 1, you install the hypervisor as the OS Type 2, you install the hypervisor _on top of another OS_ (Windows, Linux, macOS, whatever) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- minifisch · 2023-12-13 19:01 Proxmox VE is also on top of another OS. (Debian Linux). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-13 19:02 And VMWare runs on a forked Linux Kernel + GNU. But that does not matter. Proxmox VE is a Linux distribution (variant of Debian, as you pointed out) so it is still formally a Type 1 hypervisor as it is the bare metal OS providing Hypervisor functionality. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SlaveZelda · 2023-12-13 19:15 Just use qemu/kvm/libvirt based alternatives. - virt-manager or boxes for desktop - cockpit machines for a single server - ovirt or kubevirt for enterprise scale or larger homelabs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob4Not · 2023-12-13 19:20 It is finished. Broadcom does it again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jess-sch · 2023-12-13 19:25 The traditional distinction between Type 1 and 2 stopped making sense when KVM appeared. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- hollowman8904 · 2023-12-13 19:29 I’d still call it a type 1: you’re not really supposed to do anything with it other than spin up VMs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Desire-Protection · 2023-12-13 19:41 the autodesk way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blind_guardian23 · 2023-12-13 19:43 Its called capitalism. you dont sell cash-cows btw, so that point was somewhere in the past. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blind_guardian23 · 2023-12-13 19:49 Proxmox seems better, especially in combination with the backup manager. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows_XP2 · 2023-12-13 19:51 Plus it's an Oracle product, so it's probably best to avoid it whenever possible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bufandatl · 2023-12-13 19:56 Or XCP-NG and XenOrchestra. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bufandatl · 2023-12-13 19:57 But the Hypervisor runs on the kernel therefore it’s a type 1 hypervisor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bufandatl · 2023-12-13 19:58 No. Type 1 runs on kernel level while type run in user space. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jess-sch · 2023-12-13 20:06 Okay. So VirtualBox is Type 1 now? Because the actual VM execution is done by a kernel module. The problem is that most hypervisors - including VirtualBox, QEMU/KVM (on Linux), QEMU/AVF (on Apple), bhyve (on FreeBSD), and also Xen - use a mixed architecture. CPU virtualization happens in the kernel, specific devices (like network interfaces with vhost-net on Linux) are virtualized by the kernel, all other virtual devices are handled by a userspace process. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- programmer_guybpf · 2023-12-13 20:09 KVM, Xen. I used to use and sell VMWare. It's garbage nowadays. They've added features and removed stability. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nik282000 · 2023-12-13 20:27 Only just started using virt-manager as an alternative to VirtualBox and it's awesome. The only feature I miss is the ability to export a VM to a single file that can be imported to someone else's host. Otherwise 10/10, no more Oracle for me! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SpongederpSquarefap · 2023-12-13 20:27 So does this mean no more free ESXi for home use? Sad days, VMware are dead to me now I'm happy I made a move towards cloud (but I'm running Proxmox at home and ideally I want to work on more hybrid solutions) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- adamshand · 2023-12-13 20:32 I haven't used Xen since the mid-2000s, I didn't realise it's still around! I remember first learning that I could live migrate a vm between nodes and doing it over and over just cause it was so cool. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OkInvestigator8086 · 2023-12-13 20:35 VMWare can annually subscribe to deez nuts ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mavour · 2023-12-13 20:37 I already upgraded to Proxmox VE. No love lost ---------------------------------------------------------------------- inco · 2023-12-13 20:40 Do not use VirtualBox... While the software is fine the company it is attached to is not. Do not download it on any company network. Oracle will lookup who download and send lawyers if they determine it was download by a business. It will cost the business either lawyer fees or about $1,000 per workstation per year. Avoid anything from Oracle pretty much at all costs. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ProbablePenguin · 2023-12-13 20:41 Proxmox is a great replacement for VMware as a type 1 hypervisor. Virtual Box is Oracle and they're scum. For a type 2 hypervisor like virtual box, windows has hyper-v built in, and linux has KVM/QEMU. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-13 20:42 I have no reason to recommend either of those over Proxmox VE. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-13 20:43 I've tried other Type 2's and so far VirtualBox in many regards is still rather good for that function. I have yet to see a reason to be worried about it being an Oracle "thing". I am, however, not exactly trusting Oracle to not mess it up, but so far so good. ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bufandatl · 2023-12-13 20:47 And why so? Also XenOrchestra is just the management software for XCP-NG/Xen Pools and comes with integrated backup and warm migration for VMWare Users. It’s like ESXi=>XCP-NG and vCenter => XenOrchestra. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- JBfromIT · 2023-12-13 20:51 The Citrix way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-13 20:51 Because when I look at them, nothing about them gives me reason to do so. I just now went to take a look at XCP-NG again and I see zero features that I don't already have. I also see the webGUI is actually very inefficient with how it uses its space. There's lots of whitespace and information is inefficiently presented, which for me is a functional regression. When I'm dealing with lots of "things" (VMs, metrics, whatever), like I frequently do in Proxmox VE, I need it to be efficiently presented (which is an arbitrary goal post, I know), and when I look at how Proxmox VE presents info vs how XCP-NG does, Proxmox VE wins very tangibly. When I look at XenOrchestra I see a lot of the same. Nothing I don't already have and it's presented less efficiently. Like, why are you even trying to convince me to consider these anyways? I've looked at them in the past and they really don't compete with Proxmox VE now, or back then when I checked last. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- bufandatl · 2023-12-13 20:54 See that’s your opinion and having that helps to understand why you think Proxmox is „superior“. And I gave you reasons why I think XenOrchestra is for me „superior“ I see that as a discussion not trying to convince you. Just showing my point of view. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- programmer_guybpf · 2023-12-13 20:55 Last I looked it up, AWS is using Xen as their primary virtualization engine. That being said, it was years ago. I've been using KVM for over a decade and I have actually played online games with friends who were playing AAA titles in KVM virtual machines with GPU passthrough. Technically KVM is lower performance than ESXi, but even getting free licenses from work I actually had a better overall sysadmin experience using KVM and the performance differences weren't noticable in any real-world way for any of my loads. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aggravating-Vehicle9 · 2023-12-13 21:05 You must be thinking of the Oracle way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- highedutechsup · 2023-12-13 21:14 In other news. LXC still alive and well. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows_XP2 · 2023-12-13 21:20 Same here. The best alternative I know of is QEMU, but it's not nearly as user friendly, and I believe that it's only available on Linux. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- adamshand · 2023-12-13 21:21 Interesting, thanks. I've never used KVM, will have to check it out! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- OkOk-Go · 2023-12-13 21:33 That sounds great! You really did a good job selling that capitalism idea. I’m gonna tell everyone in the nation, we’ll all be business owners milking our products, and nobody will have to work again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- djgizmo · 2023-12-13 21:36 they did... they got a 404 not found error. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thecolossalfossil · 2023-12-13 21:47 That's odd.. I was just looking at one and got a 303 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- autogyrophilia · 2023-12-13 21:49 Well. So it's Proxmox or XCP-ng HyperV beats that metric by technicality. It's more that products like VMware workstation and Virtualbox are developer tools, not production and don't follow the same concerns like ease of backup. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- coolmikeg · 2023-12-13 22:09 The Cisco way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alifeinbinary · 2023-12-13 22:25 Which of these options provides the VM with access to the GPU resources? I’m currently using VMWare to run Manjaro Linux (I use arch btw) and like that it feels like native performance, as opposed to VirtualBox, which only allocates 256MB of graphic memory at a maximum. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NerdyNThick · 2023-12-13 22:40 > It will cost the business either lawyer fees or about $1,000 per workstation per year. Only if you install and use the Extension Pack, which is the only part of VB that isn't free. The main VB binaries are released under the GPL, no company could possibly be on the hook for this. That said, I'd expect 95% of VB installs, DO use the Extension Pack. *That* said, fuck VirtualBox, fuck Oracle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blind_guardian23 · 2023-12-13 23:22 lol, you are describing a day that happened decades ago and everybody agreed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PaulEngineer-89 · 2023-12-13 23:27 How do you claim it’s a “type 1”? The kernel in VMware is RHEL, same as Xen that it’s based on. The only difference is you really don’t have access to the kernel. Or maybe I’m reading too deeply and the whole “type 1/2” thing is largely marketing? It’s sort of like at what point, particularly with KVM, does it cease to be a VM vs a container? And I think the whole paravirtualization terminology similarly at this point serves very little purpose because Libvirt turns that whole concept on its head. Reason I’m saying this is that at one time there were clear and distinct differences between the various VMs in terms of implementation. It is much harder to make a case today. Definitely there are performance limits with CPU emulation (full QEMU) which has plagued for instance Android development environments but it is much harder to see much performance difference between kernel based VMs whether desktop or “bare metal” but in terms of usability there are clear differences. A bare metal system is limited to remote access only. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Lancaster1983 · 2023-12-13 23:32 Glad I moved off it. Proxmox has been working great for me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Aggravating-Vehicle9 · 2023-12-14 00:07 The Electronic Arts way ---------------------------------------------------------------------- LightBrightLeftRight · 2023-12-14 00:20 Mine returned a 418 and the doctors are concerned ---------------------------------------------------------------------- primalbluewolf · 2023-12-14 01:22 Thats doable with the above. Its not necessarily trivial to do with the above. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mosaic_hops · 2023-12-14 02:18 I got a 413. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MaxPanhammer · 2023-12-14 02:32 All the capitalists down voting you 🙄🙄 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- z3roTO60 · 2023-12-14 02:36 I really would love to know how large our hospital’s budget it for Citrix. The whole thing runs on it and it hasn’t been down in the few years I’ve been here. I’m curious how it stacks up against our Microsoft Enterprise licenses and other similar things ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cylemmulo · 2023-12-14 02:56 Yup that’s my current possible go to for a replacement ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-14 04:41 Type 1, as defined, is that the hypervisor is the bare metal OS. With Virtualbox, because it runs _on top of Windows_ it is _by definition_ a Type 2 hypervisor. I welcome you to go look up the definitions and explore the topic, because that's how they're defined. Don't argue me, go argue the facts yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- BloodyIron · 2023-12-14 04:42 Hyper-V can actually run in either Type 1 or Type 2 modes. You can actually even convert a Type 2 setup for Windows Server to Type 1, which IMO is actually very neat and impressive. It's one of the few times anything Windows impresses me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Sail-3206 · 2023-12-14 04:49 Type 1 hypervisors manage the global pool of resources and hardware in the machine. Linux/KVM is type 1. The last time I was down in the weeds with ESX, it was similar to Xen: a lightweight kernel that performs memory management and scheduling, but delegated a lot of the hardware management to a dedicated instance of Linux (dom0 in the Xen world). i.e., Although dom0 is a virtual machine, it performs system level resource management. The system can’t run without it, thus making it a type 1. Type 2 hypervisors are not responsible for managing the global pool of resources in the machine, they are simply users of those resources, and the underlying operating system is responsible for memory management, scheduling, etc. Both types necessarily have kernel mode components because they require hardware features to control and switch the virtual contexts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Sail-3206 · 2023-12-14 05:05 Both types require kernel mode components in order to access the hardware features that make the magic happen, and both have user mode monitors. Type 1 hypervisors manage resources and scheduling for the machine. Type 2 rely on an operating system to manage machine resources. In both cases, the “virtual machine” itself is represented as a process to the host operating system. The “physical” memory of the VM is just a large virtual mapping in that process’s address space. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- neumaticc · 2023-12-14 05:30 2023 in a nutshell: shocker, [insert company] made their product worse ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jess-sch · 2023-12-14 07:54 >Type 1 hypervisors manage the global pool of resources and hardware in the machine. >Type 2 hypervisors are not responsible for managing the global pool of resources in the machine, they are simply users of those resources, and the underlying operating system is responsible for memory management, scheduling, etc. > Linux/KVM is type 1. I fail to see how, given these two definitions, you come to this conclusion. KVM is merely a kernel module that reuses the memory management and scheduling of Linux. The exact same goes for VirtualBox. Of course, you could argue that you view Linux and KVM as a single unit, making it fit the Type 1 definition. But what stops anyone else from viewing their Linux/VirtualBox setup as a single unit? Ultimately, anyone who puts (QEMU/)KVM and VirtualBox in two separate categories is not basing that decision on an architectural difference. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AreYouOKAni · 2023-12-14 11:16 Proxmox has GPU Passthrough. Never used it but worth a shot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- slackwaredragon · 2023-12-14 12:47 Depends on how much cash is presented. At least that's my experience with Healthcare acquisitions. They don't buy failing companies either, unless there's something they want out of it (like IP or certain contracts). Source: I worked at cash-cows that were purchased by massive organizations (i.e. Express Scripts, Omnicare, Anthem), made a couple of billion more than they did when purchased just because of the trajectory. The comes the stripping, reorganization and ultimately the demise of the old company into a business unit that everyone hates. Went through that 2x before I decided to jump ship shorty after buyout (but before things turn). Few more times after that, I made a consulting company out of the experiences. 🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plantherblorg · 2023-12-14 12:49 VMware was ***not*** operating sustainably. It's part of why they got acquired. It's going to tick people off but there's going to be a lot of changes like this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ____Reme__Lebeau · 2023-12-14 13:09 Jesus Christ. What they did to powermills pricing should have been criminal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Desire-Protection · 2023-12-14 13:11 lol same for fusion 360 [https://www.reddit.com/r/Autodesk/comments/17v029j/fua/](https://www. reddit.com/r/Autodesk/comments/17v029j/fua/) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- johnnybgooderer · 2023-12-14 13:43 Profitable companies are sold all the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Imaginary-Sail-3206 · 2023-12-14 14:38 >KVM is merely a kernel module that reuses the memory management and scheduling of Linux. The exact same goes for VirtualBox. I didn’t make a large enough distinction. Linux itself _is_ the type 1 hypervisor, and KVM an extension as you say, which provides a hardware abstraction layer and management for resources related to virtual machines. >Of course, you could argue that you view Linux and KVM as a single unit, making it fit the Type 1 definition. But what stops anyone else from viewing their Linux/VirtualBox setup as a single unit? VirtualBox has/had? a kernel component which essentially did what KVM does, the rest was just a VMM and interface (like QEMU/KVM). Nothing would stop Virtualbox from just using KVM instead. Virtualbox is just a front end (monitor) to the Linux type 1 hypervisor, a replacement for the QEMU/KVM combo. But Virtualbox is not a type 1 hypervisor. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NanobugGG · 2023-12-14 14:46 Is this like a subscription model, or can someone explain what it means? 🙂 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- thePZ · 2023-12-14 16:28 Yeah I tried the ‘roll your own’ method with Ubuntu and cockpit + cockpit-machines and it just had too many quirks and weird issues, at least with what I was trying to do. Proxmox does a much better job ---------------------------------------------------------------------- blind_guardian23 · 2023-12-14 17:27 People actually believe everyone can be a millionaire ... you just need to work hard 🤣 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- at_physicaltherapy · 2023-12-14 19:04 That's unfortunate. The main thing that keeps me from switching to proxmox or xcp-ng or anything else is no equivalent of pyvmomi. I remember seeing some posts from the xcp-ng team that seemed almost hostile to someone trying to have a similar project to pyvmomi for xcp-ng. If there was a viable automation API for proxmox, I'd be there in a heartbeat. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- alifeinbinary · 2023-12-14 19:38 Thank you! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SweetBabyAlaska · 2023-12-15 03:59 Ive had no issues transferring Qcow2 images around. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- nik282000 · 2023-12-15 04:30 Ill have to look at that. The only import/export method I found was to dump the settings as an xml and copy the virtual hard drive with it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SweetBabyAlaska · 2023-12-15 06:50 yea its definitely not as convenient as Vbox images thats for sure. Qcow2 images are basically just the filesystem in a file. The harder part is definitely saving the settings. I've seen some people just dump the XML and convert it into a CLI command, then they just run the command directly using the image. Its more scriptable and diy, but a lot less clean and easy. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- therealSoasa · 2023-12-15 08:19 Think they're called it UMUG ---------------------------------------------------------------------- therealSoasa · 2023-12-15 08:21 I got a 187 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixuser011 · 2023-12-15 08:23 Hey, I don't care what it's called as long as it continues as is ---------------------------------------------------------------------- therealSoasa · 2023-12-15 08:34 U mug 😁🍻 , am I the only one drinking this early ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- unixuser011 · 2023-12-15 08:37 it's pretty early here too, ngl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- flo850 · 2023-12-15 09:06 >at\_physicaltherapy hi, there is a full cli for xen-orchestra ( xo-cli ) and we're working on a easier to use REST api The REST api should be quite easy to use in any other language ---------------------------------------------------------------------- at_physicaltherapy · 2023-12-15 14:24 I appreciate the response. For some additional background: I actually put a couple of engineers on this task for a few months at my last company but we were unable to find parity for what we needed with the xo-cli. At that point we started to look at other RESTful projects and considered funding or building one. The community response that we saw with a different community built API led us to believe that the vision for the project was simply not aligned to our needs either, which is why we moved on. Best of luck with it though! I'm hoping for more competition in the hypervisor space.