VMware Entitlement Policy Regarding Acceleration Kits

Effective Jan 25th, 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this policy document is to define Entitlements for customers who purchased VMware software as part of a product set (i.e., Acceleration Kits, which are grouping of individual products), and are on active Support and Subscription (SnS) contracts.

Scope: This policy applies to customers who have obtained VMware products via an Acceleration Kit purchase and wish to understand their product entitlements.

Author: The Policy is owned by VMware’s Pricing and Licensing group and supersedes all other policies pertaining to Acceleration Kit upgrades.

Policy: VMware sells software licenses as individual products (the smallest sold unit, typically Editions) and as product sets, which are a group of individual products (typically named Acceleration Kits).

Examples:

• Individual Product: vSphere Advanced Edition, which is available for purchase individually
• Product Set: vSphere Advanced Acceleration Kit, which is a group of seven individual products, and as of Jan 25th, 2011 includes: 1 x vCenter Foundation and 6 x vSphere Advanced Edition. All Acceleration Kits are Product Sets.

 

Edition (Individual Product) Customers:

For customers who have an active SnS contract for individual products, your contract entitles you to updates and upgrades to future versions of your individual products. This is your individual product entitlement.

Example:

1. Customer licenses vSphere 4.0 Standard Edition, which does not include vMotion. Customer is on active SnS for vSphere Standard Edition.
2. Later, vMotion is added to vSphere 4.1 Standard Edition’s product definition.
3. As an active vSphere Standard Edition subscriber, customer is entitled to the vMotion feature when customer upgrades to vSphere Standard Edition 4.1.

 

Acceleration Kit (Product Set) Customers

For customers who have an active SnS contract for Acceleration Kit product sets, your contract provides you entitlements to the individual products you acquired at the time of your Acceleration Kit product set  purchase. This means your individual product entitlements do not change if VMware subsequently changes what is included in the Acceleration Kit product set:

• You will not lose entitlements to any individual products you’ve licensed if VMware subsequently removes product(s) from the Acceleration Kit you purchased.
• You will not gain entitlements to any additional individual products if VMware subsequently adds more product(s) or changes the product(s) included in Acceleration Kit you purchased.

Example:

• On 12/31/2010, customer buys vSphere Advanced Acceleration Kit product set, which on that date included seven individual products (1 x vCenter Foundation, 6 x vSphere Advanced).
• On 2/1/2011, the vSphere Advanced Acceleration Kit product set has changed to include a different set of products (1 x vCenter Standard, 6 x vSphere Advanced).
• Customer entitlement to individual products acquired on 12/31/2010 does not change: (1 x vCenter Foundation, 6 x vSphere Advanced).