[CentOS] redhat vs centos

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Monday 07 November 2011 20:13:58 Trey Dockendorf wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2011 at 10:42 AM, John Beranek <john at redux.org.uk> wrote:
> > On 02/11/2011 10:31, Patrick Lists wrote:
> > > On 11/02/2011 11:02 AM, Tony Mountifield wrote:
> > >> What is a "socket" in their pricing model? The word can mean so many
> > >> different things...
> > > 
> > > Afaik it refers to a physical cpu socket. So they count actual cpu's,
> > > not the amount of cores in each cpu.
> > 
> > I was just asking myself this very question the other day, and I
> > couldn't determine how many sockets you are using if you use, say, 2
> > _virtual_ processors.
> 
> The sockets refers to the literal, physical CPUs.  Virtual CPUs (for
> guests) or cores do not count.  Unless your running some kind of mainframe
> you will likely have a server with anywhere from 1-2 sockets.  My
> understanding of the licensing is that you pay for the
> host/hypervisor/machine to have RHEL, plus however many guests the license
> includes.  So 4 or unlimited.

I think John was asking about the scenario where you *do* *not* have any 
physical hardware, like deploying RHEL on someone else's virtual environment 
(think cloud computing). So you sign up for a virtual machine with, say, 16 
cores and your provider assigns you virtual hardware according to your spec. 
How would you count "sockets" on that?

Typically, you have no way of knowing the physical structure of the "cloud 
machine" where your virtual machine is being hosted. Also, this structure may 
even change over time due to upgrades of the cloud hardware (by the cloud 
provider). You wouldn't even know about it.

How many RHEL licences would you need to buy for such a virtual system?

Best, :-)
Marko