The laundry list of supporters for multi-core chip processing continues to
grow. Virtualization software maker VMware became the latest vendor to
announce that its entire server product line will support dual-core
processors.
VMware GSX Server 3.2, which shipped this month, is the first VMware
server product to support dual-core servers, followed by the Palo Alto,
Calif., company’s ESX Server and VirtualCenter software. VMware began
supporting dual-core chips on its Workstation desktop software when it was
introduced earlier this year.
Dual-core chips feature two cores or sockets per chip providing a
performance boost without increasing power consumption. Virtualization
allows users to run multiple operating systems or applications on one
hardware box at the same time.
Detractors have said a combination of dual-core pricing and virtualization
could be a tricky proposition in terms of accurate licensing rates.
Virtualization allows part of a processor to be dedicated to one task, which
can cloud the pricing issue.
The question is: If each chip boasts two sockets, how would this affect the way vendors charge customers? This is the same question that plagues the
prospect of utility computing scenarios, which allows users to pay “by the
drink,” or according to the computing power they use. This approach gives
users greater control over how they spend money on resources such as CPUs.
AMD, Intel and IBM have all launched dual-core chips in 2005, opening the
door for software makers to pledge or refuse their support.
So far, software makers have been yielding to customer demands by not
charging each dual-core processor as two separate chips. Microsoft, for
example, said that it would count each multi-core chip as one processor.
Oracle changed
its tune as late as Friday, vowing to price its application server and
database software by designating each socket on a multi-core processor as
three-quarters of a chip.
Some experts say this might not be enough to appease customers who view the
arrival of dual- or multi-core processors as a way to get free extra
performance at a time when they are already paying good money for computing
gear.
While the pricing question remains, VMware said in a statement that
“dual-core systems are a sweet-spot for virtualization,” maximizing hardware
efficiency so that customers require fewer servers.
With VMware software, IT organizations can provision services and change the
amount of resources dedicated to a service by manipulating a management
console in lieu of manual reconfiguration or repurposing.
Hardware management is separated from the software management and can be
treated as a single pool of processing, storage and networking power to be
shuttled across the enterprise.
