The change only applies to new systems, existing configurations will be able to get additional free per-CPU licenses. New servers and VMware licenses must be purchased before 11:59 pm PST U.S. April 30, 2020 to qualify for additional free per-CPU licenses .
Q: What is VMware announcing?Full details at VMware.
A: VMware is more closely aligning to the industry standard of licensing software based on CPU cores as a primary licensing metric. With this change, VMware is still using the per-CPU licensing model, but we will require one license for any software offering that we license on a per-CPU basis, for up to 32 physical cores. That is, the license will cover CPUs with up to 32 physical cores. This change is effective starting on April 2, 2020.
Q: Why is VMware updating its per-CPU licensing model?
A: VMware is working to align our product offerings to industry standard licensing models and projected changes in the hardware market. We cannot continue pricing on a per-CPU basis, where CPUs could have unlimited core counts. The 32-core limit is designed to minimize customer impact given current core counts generally used in the industry, and by the majority of our customers.
Any customer who purchases VMware software per-CPU licenses, to be deployed on a physical server with more than 32-cores per CPU, prior to April 30, 2020 will be eligible for additional free per-CPU licenses to cover the cores on those CPUs.