I have escalated internally to get the official reply....
Here in ANZ we always try to sell the "per physical server count"
ie. if you have 10 servers/hosts in the VM (or HyperV, XenServer, etc) cluster then it's 10 copies of SnapManager per server, regardless of how many virtual images there are running. I believe it is in the "contract acceptance" screen during the software install too.
It *is* written in the manuals for SnapDrive's .. it is a physical server license count (we recently introduced "unlimited/node" option for that too). .. and you need that to make most SnapManager's run..
Yes, server count license limiting are not enforced today (expect that to change). We can identify those naughty customers at the support case and contract renewal stage (even if they turn off Autosupports). We'd rather be a little relaxed (and use the "honesty system") than have huge numbers of support calls about temporarily increasing the "VM limit" during an emergency use case.
Yes, it hurts the little customer that has just one instance of Exchange or SQL on VMware, but the bigger customers never get to have the conversation about VM counts again (unless they grow the physical server count).
If they complain we often go through the unlimited or array/node license options and the cross-over point of ~6-10 servers.. and the benefits that licensing is taken care of forever , plus it makes the sales-reps work a bit harder for their commission.
I'll extend the question to also include; what about DR site licenses.... "do passive/cold stand-by servers need the software licenses too?".. my answer is "yes" to that too
Gr
