Deploying vSphere into a managed hosting environment requires the hosts and their vCenter Server to be appropriately licensed to enable the required feature set. The introduction of vCloud Director and NSX similarly require appropriate licenses. For service providers using the VMware vCloud SP Bundles to license their current estate, vCloud Director is included¹ in the 5-point bundle, but this does not include NSX. NSX for Service Providers is available in three different versions depending upon the features required. Those versions are known as NSX-SP Base, NSX-SP Advanced, and NSX-SP Enterprise.

If a tenant pod does not use the distributed firewall, dynamic routing or L2VPN connectivity, the Edge Services Gateway (with static routing only) and VXLAN-based networking features are available in the NSX-SP Base edition which is included in the “Advanced” 7-point bundle. To enable the distributed firewall and deliver the benefits of micro-segmentation to the tenant, or add dynamic routing or L2 VPN, the customer’s workloads must be licensed using NSX-SP Advanced which is included in the “Advanced with Networking” 9-point bundle. Should the customer require the integration of externally hosted, physical devices into their VXLAN networks, this would require NSX-SP Enterprise which is included in the “Advanced with Networking and Management” 12-point bundle.

It is quite likely that an existing managed hosting provider introducing cloud services will want to offer the service to their existing customer base. The availability of the benefits of NSX such as micro-segmentation does not mean however, that all customers will immediately be increased to a 9-point or 12-point bundle. VMware vCloud Usage Meter can be used to report on multiple tenants who each use different features, allowing the service provider to upsell new capabilities to their existing customer base to increase revenue in line with the increase in license points, rather than having to increase their costs in advance of any incremental revenue being generated to recoup an upfront investment.

The following figure illustrates the service provider data center model used earlier with the addition of NSX-SP Advanced or Enterprise in some tenants, while others require only NSX-SP Base with the resulting smaller increase in points consumption there.

 

In this figure, Tenant 1 and Tenant 3 are using the Edge Services Gateway in VMware vCloud Networking and Security™ mode and VXLAN logical networking, features which, together with vCloud Director are available in the “Advanced” 7-point bundle. Tenant 2 is using the Distributed Firewall feature which requires NSX-SP Advanced which in turn requires the “Advanced with Networking” 9-point bundle, whereas (although not shown in the diagram) Tenant 4 is using features that require NSX-SP Enterprise and the “Advanced with Networking and Management” 12-point bundle.

It is important to note, that there is no additional points consumption when the service provider makes the features available in a particular location. The increase in points consumption only arises when a service provider’s customer takes the additional services, which also means an increase in revenue for the service provider as a result.