As my Computer Weekly article points out today, people running server environments like VMWare and Xen are having to pay more than they should for applications running on the server.
Some software companies are not prepared to recognise a soft partition which means IT departments running the supplier's applications on a virtual server, need to pay for the full capacity of the server. If the server has 12 processors and you're application is using four, you have to pay for all 12.
This seems grossly unfair. In previous blog posts I have mentioned that Oracle and IBM both follow a policy of not recognising software partitioning, as far as licensing goes. This looks to me like a way for them to jump on the virtualisation bandwagon and make a stack of money out of it.
I wonder how many other software companies do not recognise licensing of soft partitions. We need to put pressure on them to change their approach now - otherwise we should be ready to buy someone else's product that does offer soft partition licensing.
