XO and XCP-ng pricing
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@olivierlambert Appreciate your quick response, again I think most decent size businesses would have no issues with the current pricing its just the micro, small businesses that will. VMware was basically giving it away, my last 3 year renewal for essentials was $106. Again Broadcom now min core count is 16, I have 6 cores per host and only have 2 hosts since they do not have onsite response but essentials was just basic software, no vmotion etc but did come with vcenter to manage both hosts. Used Veeam to replicate across hosts and backup to our backup storage, again Veeam provides a non profit pricing which is very affordable.
So you agree you were only paying for the software (prior to the acquisition).... with XCP-ng you can get the software for free for the entire stack and have the same level of support (from the community) which you had with Essentials from Broadcom.
You're asking for more than what you were getting from Broadcom before, and to essentially be paid to "move".
Insane....
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Well, indeed. If you don't want support I can sell it to you for $1
Or for free, which is already what we do 
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@olivierlambert said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
I understand, as you understand we cannot actually lose money on what we do. Remember, we do open source, not like Broadcom, so you can't compare directly. Being at a lower listed price than what we have will simply kill us. It's simple as that.
Right and changing the model for micro-customers or non-profits (or MSP's who support Non-Profits) doesn't make sense.
Even a single ticket into the ticket system costs money, money to look at, money to review any logs, money to staff, I think everyone pretty much understands that.
What doesn't make sense to me is that @bishoptf wants to pay for some level of support, that is lower than what they were paying broadcom for just software without any support for software that is completely opensource, when it appears that they are running a Managed Services Provider organization.
And not for nothing, but Non-Profits in the US get some very solid funding every year, they have money, $1000 a year is nothing. I've seen a Food bank sign on the dotted line for almost $50,000 without even looking at it for a Wireless upgrade for their offices.
They latter ended up spending even more to expand the network the same year.
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@DustinB said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@olivierlambert Appreciate your quick response, again I think most decent size businesses would have no issues with the current pricing its just the micro, small businesses that will. VMware was basically giving it away, my last 3 year renewal for essentials was $106. Again Broadcom now min core count is 16, I have 6 cores per host and only have 2 hosts since they do not have onsite response but essentials was just basic software, no vmotion etc but did come with vcenter to manage both hosts. Used Veeam to replicate across hosts and backup to our backup storage, again Veeam provides a non profit pricing which is very affordable.
So you agree you were only paying for the software (prior to the acquisition).... with XCP-ng you can get the software for free for the entire stack and have the same level of support (from the community) which you had with Essentials from Broadcom.
You're asking for more than what you were getting from Broadcom before, and to essentially be paid to "move".
Insane....
Not exactly I am just trying to note that there are small companies that need something equvalent, they cannot and will not pay for it at the current pricing. I am not asking for anything more then what we currently have, I would gladly roll with community support but the current compile only option for most small businesses will be a no go, thats just the way it is. Using one of the scripts that are out there is not official is not the way to go either.
There are many, many small businesses that was using essentials without Vmotion and had a single pane of glass to manage. Currently there are no real good solutions that provide that same level at the same cost. I for one would like to support whoever I end up going with but unable to do it at current levels.
Currently I believe I still have some sanity left, lol. It's all good, I was just trying to show there are many of us out here that were running essentials and the current Broadcom pricing for standard is actually lower.....although a subscription vs perpetual etc...again appreciate having options and all the work, the problem is not us small guys its the greedy larger companies that CAN afford it but have an IT staff that can do it and not PAY for support...thats the real problem....
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Not exactly I am just trying to note that there are small companies that need something equvalent,
You're conflating paying for the right to use the software (VMWare Essentials) with OpenSource and completely free to use.
Do you ask your employees to work for free, endlessly, of course not.
Just use the opensource software and the community forums here for support, since that is clearly the bulk of what you're really needing.
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Currently there are no real good solutions that provide that same level at the same cost.
You're right, XCP-ng and Xen orchestra from Source or XOCE (see my profile) are cheaper!
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@bishoptf if you really want, I'll invoice you annually for $150/year to support you, personally.
It'll be me telling you to read the docs or searching the forums.
Sounds like a great deal, I'll even provide you a link to the docs.
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@DustinB said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@bishoptf if you really want, I'll invoice you annually for $150/year to support you, personally.
It'll be me telling you to read the docs or searching the forums.
Sounds like a great deal, I'll even provide you a link to the docs.
Wow, thats not really helping the conversation, not sure what point your trying to prove. I was just trying to point out that for us very small businesses that current Broadcom standard pricing is cheaper. I have no issue compiling and installing and can rtfm etc but the person following me might not have the same level. I've been doing this stuff for years, most of the green support folks would be totally lost. They want to install an ISO and click a few buttons etc.
Will just leave it here since it appears you are taking what I am saying the wrong way and that was not my intent which was at that the current pricing from Broadcom for VMware standard with less than 16 cores is cheaper....I know about the community and open source but I would prefer to support Vates etc....
You can now continue to throw insults...which was never my intent to begin with, peace.
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Wow, thats not really helping the conversation, not sure what point your trying to prove. I was just trying to point out that for us very small businesses that current Broadcom standard pricing is cheaper
It isn't cheaper, nothing can be cheaper than free. You're paying Broadcom for the right to use the software, without any assurance or support from the vendor directly.
With XCP-ng, ProxMox or just straight KVM, you get the software for free, and still have access to a community to ask for help.
You're confused about what you're paying Broadcom for and are expecting the same rules to apply here when they don't.
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Another way to look at this is Vates is saying that they simply won't sell you access to support for less than X dollars year (support, not the software the software is free).
You're saying that you only want to pay less than X dollars per year, and Vates is telling you that it isn't worth the business risk to sell to customers who are so small and is recommending you use the opensource software and community support for free.
If your customers told you that they wanted to pay you only a 10th per year what you're charging them now, would you accept that, or would you recommend that they find an alternative answer?
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@bishoptf Something else to consider is the quality of support you get for what you pay. It's possible, not always possible, but possible, even likely, that you can download and use XCP-ng for free, build XO from source, giving you that for free, and still get better support here in the forums than the paid support you get from VMware (or from Citrix for XenServer for that matter).
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@JeffBerntsen said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@bishoptf Something else to consider is the quality of support you get for what you pay. It's possible, not always possible, but possible, even likely, that you can download and use XCP-ng for free, build XO from source, giving you that for free, and still get better support here in the forums than the paid support you get from VMware (or from Citrix for XenServer for that matter).
Exactly, and on the flip side of that, there is nothing in the lowest tiers of support agreements from Broadcom that offers anything remotely close to an SLA or assurance, they may offer you the bare minimum of saying, "Thumbs up from us" and then tell you to upgrade to the latest version of the software.
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@JeffBerntsen said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
@bishoptf Something else to consider is the quality of support you get for what you pay. It's possible, not always possible, but possible, even likely, that you can download and use XCP-ng for free, build XO from source, giving you that for free, and still get better support here in the forums than the paid support you get from VMware (or from Citrix for XenServer for that matter).
I get it but I have to think of those that follow me, right now the folks I support they are spoiled since I provide support for them at a reduced rate, think cheap, since they are a non profit. But while I could compile from source it's not a easy path for a lot of folks, mainly the folks that will probably be supporting them in the future. I try to keep things simple and compiling from source for many non linux folks is not simple. Documentation is good but still assumes the user to know what they are doing.
Again appreciate the conversation and will continue to evaluate all the options.
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
compile from source it's not a easy path for a lot of folks
You aren't compiling anything, you're downloading an ISO and installing that to hardware, and in the case of XOCE, you're running a single line command on a Ubuntu Server.
All of it comes with community provided support.... provided at zero cost to you, which means you get to reap even more benefit (value).
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There are scripts to run that will set up the XO-CE, even an image you can download directly and answer a few questions to set the IP, etc. while downloading it. It's not hard and easy to document. If that user goes away, then it might get more complex, but there are a couple people that have made scripts on github to get the XO-CE running on many Debian based and many RHEL based linux, I think there is even a docker image if you are using docker stuff.
But I agree looking out for "the next guy" is something that needs to be done whenever possible.
As far as pricing for non-profit education, I'll have to contact sales again and see what I can do. I checked several years ago when things were kind of separate, now that support is all encompassing I need to check back and see what it will cost. I've just been running the XO-CE version but I like to support projects where I can, and if I can wedge a little money into my budget for support, I certainly will do that. With only 3 hosts and a handful of VMs, it's hard to come up with the money for the lowest tier.
One thing I really want to work with is XOstor, I think in my system this might be a good way to go forward for me. Cheaper than building new NAS (about $5000 each for two of them).
All that said, if it is a simple enough system, you probably aren't going to need much support beyond these forums.
[edit] Are we allowed to attach PDF documents to a post? I have simple instructions from when I set up 8.2 in my lab. I don't have newer documents made for 8.3 using XO-lite yet, but screenshots to put to words. XO-lite is changing the knowledge burden to get up and running by a significant factor, and I like where it is going!
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Vmware Education pricing back before Broadcom was insanely good. We are getting an Edu discount from Vates as well but its still more expensive than pre Broadcom VMware was. At the same time it's much cheaper than Broadcom owned VMware
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@flakpyro said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Vmware Education pricing back before Broadcom was insanely good. We are getting an Edu discount from Vates as well but its still more expensive than pre Broadcom VMware was. At the same time it's much cheaper than Broadcom owned VMware
Yup for essentials my pricing was like $45/year, lol. Veeam also has really good non profit pricing, even Microsoft does now. Broadcom has decided to just go for as much money as it can, really dumb move inmho but seems to be there charter in life...I really think xcp-ng would be a good fit especially if Veeam starts to officially support it. Still kind of having to wait on that also, but I will reach out to Vates and see what they say.
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We have a group of colleges together, and they got the price down to $120 per core for VCF, there are no other levels to buy.
And for the small system that we have, Vates would not be a huge amount less, only a couple thousand a year less which doesn't really push to find a different solution. But again I have not looked into education discounts yet so if that cuts the price in half, then it would be substantial enough that they might think about changing. We also pay for Dell vxrail, not sure how much that costs, but allows us to not employ a person to handle the cluster.
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Veeam starts to officially support it.
Veeam works inside of the VM as well, if you wanted a toolless backup solution you'd just use Xen Orchestra. . . I don't understand this fundamental lack of understanding that is happening in this topic....
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@bishoptf said in XO and XCP-ng pricing:
Yup for essentials my pricing was like $45/year, lol.
You were paying $45 a year to use the software.... literally nothing else, you got zero support with that $45 a year...
You can and many people do use XCP-ng and XOCE for $0/year forever and have saved that much money, and have been given access to the community for free, where the developers will respond if they have time.
