VMware Shared pricing

VMware Shared is no longer available for new deployments. Existing instances will continue to be supported until 15 January 2025. Ensure that you migrate all your VMware Shared resources to IBM Cloud® for VMware Cloud Foundation as a Service by 15 January 2025. For more information, see End of Support for VMware Shared deployments.

IBM Cloud® for VMware Solutions Shared offers two pricing plans for creating VMware® virtual data centers. Virtual data centers incur charges for the following virtual data center resource usages:

Storage allocations with tiered pricing based on storage performance
Virtual CPU (vCPU) usage
Virtual memory usage
Egress on public networking
Commercial operating system licenses used
Third-party VMware services

Table 1. Pricing plans
Plans	Description
VMware Shared On-demand	The vCPU and RAM virtual data center are allocated based on the demand. Resources are not preallocated. If you have a large regional demand, delays in availability can occur. The limits that are established for the amount of vCPU and RAM are maximums. vCPU and RAM resource limits can be increased and decreased later as required. The price is calculated hourly and it is based on the resource usage in the virtual data center. The amount of storage that can be allocated and used in the virtual data center is unlimited. Charges are hourly based on GB of allocated storage. The amount of inbound and outbound public networking is unlimited. Public outbound bandwidth is charged per GB.
VMware Shared Reserved	The vCPU and RAM virtual data center reservations are pre-allocated and their availability is guaranteed. vCPU and RAM resources can be increased and decreased later as required. The amount of storage that can be allocated and used in the virtual data center is unlimited. Charges are hourly based on GB of allocated storage. The amount of inbound and outbound public networking is unlimited. Public outbound bandwidth is charged per GB.

Price breakdown

Usage

Metering is for the full potential size of the resource for the time period that the resource is used.

For example, a single-zone on-demand virtual data center is created with a resource limit of 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM. The data center has no VMs running on it, so you do not receive a charge for the vCPU and RAM. If an 8 vCPU with 8 GB virtual machine (VM) is started, metering is calculated for the size of that VM. If the VM uses fewer resources than the ones assigned to it, metering is applicable to the full size of the VM.

Allocation

Metering is applicable to the full potential size of the resource for the life of the resource.

For example, a single zone reserved virtual data center is created with a resource allocation of 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM and no VMs are created or running on it. Metering is applicable to 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM.

Monthly peak metric usage

The maximum value of the metric used over a full month.

For example, a single zone reserved virtual data center is created with 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM. Later in the month, the data center is reduced to 50 vCPU and 400 GB RAM. The monthly peak usage is 100 vCPU and 800 GB RAM.

Hourly peak metric usage

The maximum value of the metric used over an hour. For example, if 100 vCPU is used for a minute of the hour with 0 vCPU used for the other 59 mins, the hourly peak metric usage is 100 vCPU.

VMware Shared on-demand billing plan

VMware Shared on-demand virtual data center resources are allocated as needed. Pricing is hourly based on the resource usage in the virtual data center. The following metrics are part of this plan.

The standard storage policy pricing is the same as the 4-IOPS/GB storage policy. The number of IOPS/GB for the standard storage policy is not guaranteed.

Storage policy availability can vary by region and deployment topology. On the VMware Shared order page, click the About tab to view available storage policy offerings.

Table 2. VMware Shared on-demand billing plan - General metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_BASE_COST	Monthly	Virtual data center price, which includes the edge gateway with five IP addresses.
TOTAL_VCPU_HOURS	Hourly	The peak vCPU usage over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_RAM_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak memory usage over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_EGRESS_GB	Usage	The total outbound public traffic is charged per GB transferred over the period of an hour. This value includes public outbound traffic.

Table 2. VMware Shared on-demand billing plan - Storage metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
TOTAL_STORAGE_POINT_TWO_FIVE_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 0.25 IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_TWO_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 2-IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_FOUR_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 4-IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_TEN_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 10 IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_VSAN_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation over the period of an hour.

Table 2. VMware Shared on-demand billing plan - Operating system metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_WINDOWS_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of Windows® license usage based on Windows VM vCPU size. For example, if you have two Windows VMs, one VM with 16 vCPU and one VM with 8 vCPU, the usage is 24 vCPU of Windows license usage.
TOTAL_RHEL_SMALL_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Small RHEL VMs are 8 vCPUs or smaller.
TOTAL_RHEL_MID_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Mid RHEL VMs are between 9 and 127 vCPUs.
TOTAL_RHEL_LARGE_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Large RHEL VMs are larger than 127 vCPUs.

VMware Shared reserved billing plan

VMware Shared reserved virtual data center resources are preallocated and guaranteed. Pricing is monthly based on the allocation size of the virtual data center.

The standard storage policy pricing is the same as the 4-IOPS/GB storage policy. The number of IOPS/GB for the standard storage policy is not guaranteed.

Storage policy availability can vary by region and deployment topology. On the VMware Shared order page, click the About tab to view available storage policy offerings.

Table 3. VMware Shared reserved billing plan - General metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_VCPU	Monthly	The peak vCPU allocation for the virtual data center over the period of one month. The peak vCPU metric is determined by the largest vCPU reservation value that is selected by the customer over a one month period.
MAX_RAM_GB	Monthly	The peak memory allocation for the virtual data center over the period of one month. The peak vCPU metric is determined by the largest memory reservation value that is selected by the customer over a one month period.
TOTAL_EGRESS_GB	Usage	The total outbound public traffic is charged per GB transferred over the period of one month. This value includes the outbound traffic through the virtual data center NSX edge to the public internet.

Table 3. VMware Shared reserved billing plan - Storage metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
TOTAL_STORAGE_POINT_TWO_FIVE_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 0.25 IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_TWO_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 2-IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_FOUR_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 4-IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_TEN_IOPS_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation at the 10 IOPS/GB tier over the period of an hour.
TOTAL_STORAGE_VSAN_GB_HOURS	Hourly	The peak storage allocation over the period of an hour.

Table 3. VMware Shared reserved billing plan - Operating system metrics
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_WINDOWS_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of Windows® license usage based on Windows VM vCPU size. For example, if you have two Windows VMs, one VM with 16 vCPU and one VM with 8 vCPU, the usage is 24 vCPU of Windows license usage.
TOTAL_RHEL_SMALL_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Small RHEL VMs are 8 vCPUs or smaller.
TOTAL_RHEL_MID_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Mid RHEL VMs are between 9 and 127 vCPUs.
TOTAL_RHEL_LARGE_LICENSES	Hourly	The peak number of RHEL license usage based on VM vCPU size. One license is charged per vCPU. Large RHEL VMs are larger than 127 vCPUs.

Private network endpoint billing plan

Private network endpoint usage incurs charges as part of the on-demand or reserved virtual data center plan. On the VMware Shared order page, click the About tab to view the pricing plan details.

Table 4. Billing plan for private network endpoints
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_PRIVATE_NETWORK_ONE_G_COST	Monthly	Charge for private network endpoint at 1 GB uplink over a period of one month.
MAX_PRIVATE_NETWORK_TEN_G_COST	Monthly	Charge for private network endpoint at 10 GB uplink over a period of one month.

Licenses and fees for Veeam Availability Suite and Zerto

Veeam® and Zerto usage incurs the following on-demand charges. You can view the charges on the IBM Cloud billing and usage view along with the usage and charges from all other IBM Cloud services.

In the IBM Cloud Usage view, locate the VMware Solutions service type. Locate the Organization plan to find the Veeam and Zerto usage across all virtual data centers in that organization. The virtual data center usage is located in a separate plan for either VMware Shared on-demand or VMware Shared Reserved.

Table 5. Licenses and fees for Veeam
Metric	Frequency	Description
MAX_VEEAM_LICENSES	Monthly	Veeam license charge for every VM under backup. The monthly charge is for the highest number of VMs under backup at any time period in the month.
TOTAL_VEEAM_BLOCK_STORAGE_GB_HOURS	Hourly	Charge per GB of block storage used for all backups.
TOTAL_VEEAM_OBJECT_STORAGE_GB_HOURS	Hourly	Charge per GB of object storage used for all backups.

Table 5. Licenses and fees for Zerto
Metric	Frequency	Description
TOTAL_ZERTO_LICENSE_HOURS	Hourly	Zerto license charge for every VM replicated. The hourly charge is for the highest number of VMs replicated to a virtual data center at any time period in the hour.
TOTAL_ZERTO_CLOUD_CONNECTOR_HOURS	Hourly	Charge for every virtual data center. One Zerto Cloud Connector per virtual data center.

No additional Veeam or Zerto usage charges for VMware Shared are incurred.

For the Veeam service, initially, all backups go to the Block Storage for Classic that is closest to their VM workloads. Backups that are a part of an inactive backup chain are immediately moved to Cloud Object Storage. The restore speed for these inactive backups might be impacted.

You can change how fast the inactive backup chains are moved to Cloud Object Storage by opening an IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions service ticket.