It’s a question that seems to pop up all the time and whilst i don’t work for Adobe I thought i’d put a post up here on it for prosperity as i’ve answered it enough times - so Adobe, if i’ve got it wrong please feel free to update me!
Prior to the recent CF8 release - CF had a very simple licensing model - a CF license (Standard or Enterprise) covered you for 2 PHYSICAL CPUs. Back then virtualisation was pretty new and hadn’t need to be addressed in the EULAs so many hosting providers (HostmySite, cfmxhosting) had offerings for ‘Virtual Private Servers’ where they’d host usually a maximum of 4 virtual servers on 1 piece of physical hardware and get away with using a single CF Standard license
Enter CF8 and all change. Firstly the CF8 license is available to view here. The changes are pretty key, starting with section 1.10a. It’s the normal legal mumbo jumbo but the upshot is that each Virtual Machine is now deemed to be 2 CPUs and your required license count is the number of VMs (running CF obviously) installed multipled by 2 PLUS the number of PHYSICAL processors in the box. So, 2 VMs running running on a dual proc box would require 2 x 2 + 2 = 6 CPUs to license so you’d need to buy 3 CF licenses. NOTE: Don’t forget that Dual Core procs are still one physical CPU so dual core duos (effectively 4 CPUs) is still 2 physical CPUs.
If you’ve got deep pockets then, you’ll be glad to know that the Enterprise version (section 3.1 in the EULA) says that the number of VMs is irrelevant and that licensing is solely based on the number of physical CPUs.
Now i had started writing a rant on the whole VM licensing and that hosting companies will simply ditch offering it under this new license but i can’t be bothered to start the discussion as it will be pretty fruitless.
September 7th, 2007 at 3:14 am
I didn’t realise the license had changed. The deal with CF Std is terrible. So if you have 2 VMs + 2 CPUs you need 3 licenses? But if you have 2 physical machines you’d only require 2 licenses! This is an anti-VM licensing policy.
If Enterprise has no VM licensing overheads then it sounds like they prefer users to buy a copy of Enterprise for VM use. So if I ran 8 VMs on a physical machine with 2 CPUs it would require just 1 license? And those CPUs could have 4 cores each it wouldn’t make any difference?
In the above scenario each VM running CF Ent would cost half the price of a CF Std license which seams like good value. I think.
September 7th, 2007 at 4:00 am
my head hurts. Run that by me again? Enterprise cheaper than Std?
and anti VM?
September 7th, 2007 at 5:14 am
looking at the current CF prices, standard at 1299 and enterprise at 7499 you’d have to buy 6 Standard licenses to come close to the enterprise licenses. So that would mean 5 virtual machines would be the break point of choosing between standard and enterprise. But then again, enterprise has all the other features over standard….
September 7th, 2007 at 6:19 am
So how would the licensing work with a hosting system like Amazon’s EC2 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=201590011) where the number of virtual machines you are using may change frequently and the physical architecture on which the VMs run is unknown to us?
Is anyone running CF on Amazon EC2?
September 7th, 2007 at 6:33 am
Omg, I completely missed it, and I can’t believe they did that! Our internal CF Standard server runs in a Virtual Machine under ESX, and the hardware has two CPUs. That said, the VM has only one virtual CPU provisioned, but if I’m reading this right I need 2+1=3 CPUs licensed to run a single instance of CF8!? That there’s actually no way to run a single instance of Coldfusion 8 Standard on a single license for dual CPU hardware with a VM?? That *can’t* be right? That’s something I’d expect from MS… no wait, not even them.
This leads to another question for the Adobe folks. I’m about to upgrade from ESX 2.5.x to ESX 3.x and Virtual Center 2.x. One of the reasons for upgrading is the automatic resource provisioning VC2+ESX3 allows, where virtual machines will be moved around between the ESX servers in the pool automatically depending on their defined needs and the resources available on any one server. My third box is scheduled for replacement next year and will probably have a different setup than the remaining 2. How will I need to license my CF VM for that? according to the physical box it resides on for the longest periods? Over how long intervals? Based on averages?
TBH I’m more tempted to just hold my hand over my eyes, pretend I didn’t see that, and wait to see if it sticks in our local courts…
September 7th, 2007 at 6:48 am
The EULA say - "Except as otherwise expressly provided in this Agreement, in the event Virtual Machines are installed on a Computer, each such Virtual Machine shall be deemed to operate the Software on 2 CPUs (each, a "Virtual Machine CPU"), and the total number of Virtual Machine CPUs plus the total number of physcial CPUs on such Computer, shall be counted together for the purpose of applaying the limitations described in this Section 1.10(a).
So even if you’ve got 1 CPU that EULA is deeming this as 2 CPUs - that seems a little random to me. But yes, running a single Virtual Machine would in indeed require you to buy 2 CF licenses, 1 for the VM and one for the host, whereas 2 VMs would require 3 licenses etc.
The formula to work out the number of processor licenses you need to cover yourself is;
(number of Virtual Machines x 2) + number of physical processors
to work out how many CF licenses you need divide the number returned by 2 as each CF license covers two physical processors.
September 7th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I guess their aim is to try to get people to buy the Enterprise version - or they’ve assumed that people running Virtualisation are not likely to want to be running the standard version…except hosting companies of course!!
September 7th, 2007 at 7:48 am
Jeez, well now I’m glad I didn’t get the time to upgrade on wednesday as I planned. If this is actually how it works this means 2 things for my company:
a) I wasted money on 2 upgrades we can’t use (No, I’m not going to get the money for another one anytime soon)
b) Coldfusion is finished as a platform in our company
I bought upgrades for two servers, one in our DMZ (a physical box) and one on our lan. So technically I have two licenses I can use on the VM, but then I can’t upgrade the DMZ server, and there’s a point to those running the same version. "All" we use CF for are some intranet apps that are in dire need of updating, a bunch of internal task-specific apps, and a handful of non-critical customer services that I guess someone could quickly rewrite in ASP.
Oh well… maybe I can do like Adobe and close my eyes and hope this virtualization thing goes away…
September 7th, 2007 at 10:59 am
or personally ping Tim Buntel and explain the situation - he may have an alternative idea (loophole?) or at least be informed how the changes have caused pain.
Heck, he other Adobe ppl may think "there are winners and losers" and you’re just one of the unlucky ones. But if there’s a chance to save the situation, why not?
September 7th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hi folks,
We were trying to allow for the official and supported use of virtual machines to help our customers… not to extract more money for the use of virtual machines. We did attempt to cover every possible scenario, but it seems that the scenario of having just 1 copy of CF Standard running on a virtual machine on a system without the host system running CF as well was not one that we covered very well.
We’re on your side guys! If you see something that just doesn’t smell right, it was probably just an oversight, not an attempt to hurt our customers.
I promise that I will see what we can do to better handle this.
We are listening,
Jason
Senior Product Manager, ColdFusion
Adobe Systems, Inc.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’m an Adobe employee, who was pretty close to the decision. That being said:
One of the key differences between Standard and Enterprise edition is the ability to run multiple instance of ColdFusion. Virtualization has changed that dramatically. As stated about, with virtualization you could buy a single license of Standard and create as many instance as your server could hold. Hence the necessity for a license change.
However, Enterprise licensing hasn’t change _at all_. Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, BEA, etc, all have VM pricing that is no where near as good as ColdFusion Enterprise. IBM and Oracle require a fractional CPU cost. Meaning each virtual CPU = .75 physical CPU (with a sliding scale getting cheaper the more you need). Microsoft has to include a complex calculator to determine the price and BEA charges per instance.
Thomas is probably also not going to like hearing this, but Adobe does not offer support for ColdFusion 8 Standard on virtualization (unless a special agreement is made). It should also be noted that ColdFusion 8 is the very first application from Adobe (or even Macromedia) to support virtualization at all.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Thanks Jason,
I believe you when you say it’s an oversight, I just hope there’s a way to remedy this without us having to wait for CF9 (how’s that going, btw? ;).
My pulse is starting to stabilize and I’ll continue playing with CF8 features on my development box for now
I’ll hold off with the upgrade of the production servers until I hear someting more, tho.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I’m pretty sure MS back tracked some crazy Vista virtualisation licenses from the original EULA….but with Windows Server 2003 Enterprise you’re only allowed to host 4 virtual instances under the same license without needing additional server licenses - don’t go that route Adobe!
September 7th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Wow, before I could even finish my relieved reply to Jasons positive comment there’s another one, and boy was that a disappointment. First of all, I’m not disappointed about the lack of *support* for CF8 Standard under a VM. Quite frankly I don’t care at all, I’ve run CF as a sysadmin since 4.0 or so (at least we had 4.5 Enterprise) and quite frankly I haven’t needed support on running it before and don’t expect to need it anytime soon. What I DO expect is to be allowed to run my single instance with a single license.
I wrote this in my mail to Jason:
"From what I can tell despite the fact that we’ve got *one* instance of your software running on *one* set of processors, we have to pay for *two* licenses just because there’s a virtualization hypervisor in between the software and the hardware? Sorry, but if that’s the case it’s both unreasonable and greedy." And I stand by that.
In my case, pulling in MS’ licensing doesn’t turn out in Adobes favour. It’s dead simple. For my server I need *one* Windows 2003 R2 Standard license, if I wanted to run SQL 2005 server on it, I’d need *one* SQL 2005 Standard license, and… *two* Coldfusion 8 Standard licenses. Oh well, virtualization is only in its beginning stages, before CF9 is out this will be everywhere… I hope for future sales the average CF Standard customer owns or is willing to pay for numerous licenses.
September 7th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
First, I agree with Adam’s comments. ColdFusion is the first Adobe product to attempt to handle the support and licensing issues around virtual machines. I was the one spending hours with our legal team trying to create this new language for the EULA to allow people to use VMs and support them. So, if you hate the EULA language, its my fault… not Adobe, ColdFusion as a language, or anyone else. It was very difficult to handle all of the scenarios without opening up another loophole, so the language does represent a very conservative calculation method. Conservative in that it is the simplest way we could come up with to protect the product from people abusing the use of virtual machines, such as having 1 VM run on a 8CPU box and only paying for one license. We’re treading in new water here and played it conservatively… not sure what else to say.
I already have some time planned with legal to see what we can do. I’m not sure what we will do or when we can get it out there, but I will do what I can as soon as I can. To those of you that are considering not upgrading because of this issue… I would like to make a couple of suggestions. Take or leave them as you see fit. First, if you can afford it… I would highly suggest getting Enterprise. There is a lot of value there and the virtualization issue goes away. I would think the server monitoring there would be particularly helpful for hosters. For those of you who can’t afford Enterprise, or don’t see it as worth the additional cost… go ahead and drop me a line. I’d like to understand your situation to help me improve the language and make sure the licensing makes sense… and it will be easier for me to give you updates on what we plan on doing here. I’m assuming there aren’t thousands of you out there in this situation.
Like I said, we aim to please and want ColdFusion to be healthy and our fellow developers to be happy.
Jason
Jason Delmore
jdelmore@adobe.com
Senior Product Manager, ColdFusion
Adobe Systems Inc.
September 7th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I do hope Adobe rewrites the EULA and just considers running instances. I’m not seeing why running CF8 in a VM is any different from running it on iron. Why I should pay for virtual processors AND physical processors escapes me. Sure I agree for paying for each instance; so if I got two VMs, each with CF8, I’d pay for 2 copies of CF8. But why on earth would I pay for a 3rd copy? If you’re using VMWare VI3 (or esx), installing something like CF on the host isn’t even an option.
It just makes zero sense.
September 8th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Stupid question to add to the mix -
Does this mean that if you are someone who is running a copy of CF8 Standard on a VPS account, that actually means you would be in violation of the licence?
I’m pretty sure there are quite a few people out there doing that (and I was about to do it myself), but now I’m a little bit worried about the whole thing?
I guess I just have to sit back and wait and see how this pans out?
September 9th, 2007 at 12:03 am
yes, i guess it would (unless you had 2 licenses) - if it was just a plain clean VPS and you install CF yourself (like GoDaddy Virtual Servers) I’d imagine the hosting companies offering CF would be straight and legal (you’d hope!)
February 26th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Just came across this blog. Has anything more reasonable shaken down from it?
A client has a quad CPU MS Virt Server they use to run a variety of VMs for their office rather than fill their rack with a bunch of specialized machines. We want to add CF8 to a single VM on that box with a virtualized uniprocessor. By my reading of the above comments, and the licence agreement, this would require the purchase of 2 CF licences for the host machine and one CF licence for the VM.
Please tell me that this has changed.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:21 am
I’m also wondering if there have been any updates to this issue. I had an opportunity recently with ColdFusion-based virtual appliances and this thread killed it. I want to be as fair as possible toward Adobe, but I think the licensing issues have gotten out of hand. A EULA should correspond to how a user is actually going to use the product and still be fair toward the manufacturer. I know that the ColdFusion EULA is written to protect Adobe in a conservative approach, but there also has to be an honor system with regards to licensing. I doubt there will ever be a way to provide a fair EULA that is based on both physical and virtual hardware. Either physical hardware OR virtual hardware should be licensed. For hosting companies, I think the terms should be varied to allow for OEM-style pricing, which covers all forms of virtualization, whether it be VMware or Virtuozzo, for a very reduced cost. It benefits Adobe by getting ColdFusion out in the market more, raising awareness and retail purchases, yet provides a competitive price for hosting companies that are competing for pennies per customer. There also should be a license leasing program such as Microsoft’s SPLA.
Somewhat un-related to the topic at hand… with the competition against ColdFusion (PHP, .NET, etc.), the price of ColdFusion is always a topic of discussion. I know it contains a large number of packaged components that provide high-level functions, but there are MANY people who have no need for these. More flexible purchasing options, bringing the price down on the "core" product, may actually save the product from extinction, otherwise I personally think it is doomed. I love ColdFusion… have been using it professionally for 9 years now, and can’t imagine the world without it, but the price is going to kill it quickly.
Either that, or a campaign comparing ColdFusion, PHP, and .NET "must" happen to get the word out about the advantages and there really is a positive ROI with the investment.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Hi everyone,
I have good news. ColdFusion 8 Updater 1, due out "soon", will have an updated EULA that I believe will addresses these concerns. I don’t want to get into official language, but I think you will all be happy with the changes. A million things go into making a release happen, every once in a while we make a mistake. Thanks for keeping us honest.
I can post a more official response once the Updater is publicly available.
Cheers,
Jason
Senior Product Manager, ColdFusion
Adobe Systems, Inc.
March 7th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
We have quite a few VPS with a well known host that run our CMS system for our clients. We have been looking to move them to Joomla or Drupal because of the expense of CF8 licensing. We would like to stay with CF but it is getting too expensive for our clients. Good news Jason. Maybe the new EULA will help us stay with CF.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Adding a Comment so I can subscribe to this thread.
-Randy
March 15th, 2008 at 1:21 am
What I am seeing is more hosts looking at BlueDragon hosting and even considering engines like Railo for their needs, if customers don’t need any of the high-end ColdFusion functions that CF8 has. With BD J2EE server going open source, this may become a popular option for virtual server offerings if Adobe doesn’t step up and find ways for hosts to be competitive and not extracting every possible dime from them. Keeping in mind that much of the drive for virtual servers is for customers that can’t afford the cost of their own server but need better than shared hosting (something ColdFusion has never been particularly robust for). The same group of customers are the ones that are not going to want (or afford) a full licensed copy of ColdFusion with the current pricing structure.
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Any updates from Jason on this? We are about to pull the trigger and get some licenses of Professional or Enterprise but we need to know the implications of each on EC2. Jason, if you could follow up or link us to an updated license agreement that would be great.
Thanks,
Darren
April 4th, 2008 at 10:15 am
following the release of 8.0.1 I’ve just looked at the EULA and blogged about it at http://john.beynon.org.uk/index.cfm/2008/4/4/ColdFusion-801-EULA-Changes
April 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Since I don’t necessarily know how many physical CPUs my Amazon EC2 is running on, how can I determine how CF Enterprise licensing would work on EC2?