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Our VMWare bill went from $66 to $3600 this year (just a dozen VMs). Next year we will be using ProxMox.

PicassoCTs 3y ago
It must be possible to milk this "dumb" investor money - which directly destroys the bought goods in the long run. Basically you create two teams. Team A develops a business version of a open source-good. Team B works on that open Source good. Team A gets acquired. The product destroyed. Team B now founds a company becoming Team A, while Team A forks the open source product and keeps the game going. Its a ton of migrations, but you could get wallstreet to donate to open source as a business strategy.
- figglestar 3y ago
  I'm not sure this is appealing to wallstreet at all but this just describes the appeal of open source as a customer to me. VMware is a just perfect case example, they're literally firing paying customers and destroying a product lots of people are using to make a quick buck. The company and the product will ultimately be destroyed regardless of their underlying value but not before they make bank. But if Vmware was open source they never would have bought it. The leverage being closed provides is the whole point.
- slt2021 3y ago
  This is how Silicon Valley works in a nutshell. There is legacy technology corporation A - with a bunch of enterprise customers, eventually they: - reach a plateau of sales /growth - feature development slows down - cost getting cut across the board The core product team eventually just leaves the company to use all their internal knowledge to create a startup B that competes with A and delivers next-gen technology in the same space. They get traction, and funding and outgrow company A eventually.
debarshri 3y ago
100$-200$ per VM is a fair price I think. Most of the revenue generating on-prem orgs can afford it. If you think it is expensive then you are not the target segment for VMware.
- orev 3y ago
  The fallacy here is that you’re ignoring the pipeline. The next generation of infrastructure admins are either running on all cloud, or running on something they can easily access like any KVM based system (like proxmox). VMware is instantly a legacy system because anyone who doesn’t already run it isn’t going to bother learning it. Revenue generating or not, the free platforms are will generate more revenue than VMware at such and exorbitant cost.
- zamadatix 3y ago
  "Can afford" and "expensive" are distractions - orgs don't buy things just because they have the money to so they find the most expensive option to burn it on. The product has to justify the cost vs other options, not just be feasible to purchase.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    It’s this. We can afford it all day every day. We choose not to because I’d rather spend the money towards products and services we like. I already do not like VMWare under Broadcom. Maybe it wasn’t clear, but I do not expect our bill to remain at $3600, but I don’t care because this won’t be an issue for us.
ThinkBeat 3y ago
If you are used to and like VMwares toolset you wont like Proxmox. I would not switch an enterprise from VMWare -> Proxmox without a really thorough analysis of what that will mean. That said the future of VMware is certainly in question.
- dgfitz 3y ago
  Check out xen
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Or KVM. Probably no enterprise type solution like something kubevirt-based really makes sense at that scale.
    - birdiesanders 3y ago
      We run a few tens of thousands of VMs on kubevirt, it’s quite fantastic.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        Well yeah. I agree. The comment up thread is running a dozen VMs and running Kubernetes with kubevirt for just that is probably overkill.
  - schmookeeg 3y ago
    +1 -- we moved to XCPng when citrix played this same game with xenserver a few years ago, and it's been a very positive move.
  - Teever 3y ago
    How is xen a suitable alternative to VMware in a situation where proxmox isn't?
  - NexRebular 3y ago
    Or Triton DataCenter[1] [1] https://docs.tritondatacenter.com/private-cloud https://docs.tritondatacenter.com/private-cloud

It must be possible to milk this "dumb" investor money - which directly destroys the bought goods in the long run. Basically you create two teams. Team A develops a business version of a open source-good. Team B works on that open Source good. Team A gets acquired. The product destroyed. Team B now founds a company becoming Team A, while Team A forks the open source product and keeps the game going. Its a ton of migrations, but you could get wallstreet to donate to open source as a business strategy.

figglestar 3y ago
I'm not sure this is appealing to wallstreet at all but this just describes the appeal of open source as a customer to me. VMware is a just perfect case example, they're literally firing paying customers and destroying a product lots of people are using to make a quick buck. The company and the product will ultimately be destroyed regardless of their underlying value but not before they make bank. But if Vmware was open source they never would have bought it. The leverage being closed provides is the whole point.
slt2021 3y ago
This is how Silicon Valley works in a nutshell. There is legacy technology corporation A - with a bunch of enterprise customers, eventually they: - reach a plateau of sales /growth - feature development slows down - cost getting cut across the board The core product team eventually just leaves the company to use all their internal knowledge to create a startup B that competes with A and delivers next-gen technology in the same space. They get traction, and funding and outgrow company A eventually.

debarshri 3y ago

100$-200$ per VM is a fair price I think. Most of the revenue generating on-prem orgs can afford it. If you think it is expensive then you are not the target segment for VMware.

orev 3y ago
The fallacy here is that you’re ignoring the pipeline. The next generation of infrastructure admins are either running on all cloud, or running on something they can easily access like any KVM based system (like proxmox). VMware is instantly a legacy system because anyone who doesn’t already run it isn’t going to bother learning it. Revenue generating or not, the free platforms are will generate more revenue than VMware at such and exorbitant cost.
zamadatix 3y ago
"Can afford" and "expensive" are distractions - orgs don't buy things just because they have the money to so they find the most expensive option to burn it on. The product has to justify the cost vs other options, not just be feasible to purchase.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  It’s this. We can afford it all day every day. We choose not to because I’d rather spend the money towards products and services we like. I already do not like VMWare under Broadcom. Maybe it wasn’t clear, but I do not expect our bill to remain at $3600, but I don’t care because this won’t be an issue for us.

ThinkBeat 3y ago

If you are used to and like VMwares toolset you wont like Proxmox. I would not switch an enterprise from VMWare -> Proxmox without a really thorough analysis of what that will mean. That said the future of VMware is certainly in question.

dgfitz 3y ago
Check out xen
- ghaff 3y ago
  Or KVM. Probably no enterprise type solution like something kubevirt-based really makes sense at that scale.
  - birdiesanders 3y ago
    We run a few tens of thousands of VMs on kubevirt, it’s quite fantastic.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Well yeah. I agree. The comment up thread is running a dozen VMs and running Kubernetes with kubevirt for just that is probably overkill.
- schmookeeg 3y ago
  +1 -- we moved to XCPng when citrix played this same game with xenserver a few years ago, and it's been a very positive move.
- Teever 3y ago
  How is xen a suitable alternative to VMware in a situation where proxmox isn't?
- NexRebular 3y ago
  Or Triton DataCenter[1] [1] https://docs.tritondatacenter.com/private-cloud https://docs.tritondatacenter.com/private-cloud