VMware: vRam was too complicated

Vendor concedes that controversial licensing model was flawed, but said it listened to its customers

VMware has answered partners' and customers' criticism of the "Vtax" and conceded that its vRam licensing model was simply "too complicated".

The virtualisation giant today confirmed that it is switching back to the CPU licence model, which was met with relief from partners whose customers' memory allowances were slashed from unlimited to 96GB when vRam was introduced last year.

VMware's vSphere and vCloud offerings will now be sold solely depending on how many CPU sockets are required instead of through the vRam consumption model, which the vendor admits added too much complexity and gained the derisory title of "Vtax" from disgruntled users.

Jon Cairns, director of systems engineering NEMEA, said customers were unhappy with the difficult system.

"Customers asked us [to change the model], and so we did. They told us that it was too complicated and following their feedback, we removed it," he confirmed.

All VMware's 400,000 customers using vSphere or vCloud on version 5 were required to use the newly abolished vRam system, but the vendor insists that no customers left over the issue.

Cairns said the move to vRam seemed the right one at the time.

"Our motivation was due to the cloud model being based around consumption," he said. "Providers do not sell individual hardware, so when we introduced vRam, we thought it was moving in that direction."

Cairns added that although customers found vRam complex, once the system had been explained it had a minimal impact on them.

He said: "When we changed it [initially], feedback from customers ended up in a number of conversations to explain how it would work.

"Once they understood it, the implication was minimal. They just did not like having those conversations in the first place."