vSAN v8 Free Ed wont install on VM - License Error

[JonSmith]

Hi All,

I'm in the process of updating a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM (in a Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V) that currently has v6 of vSAN (Free) running on it - and has been quite happily running for over a year - updating to v8 build 8730 with a license supplied with the v8 download link. However, I'm running into the following License error saying that the platform is not compatible...



I've googled this error and from what I've read, installing vSAN (Free) shouldn't be a problem on a VM and in fact you shouldn't be able to install the Free version on a 'physical' machine (https://forums.starwindsoftware.com/vie ... f=5&t=4236).

Can anyone help with this and confirm if I should be able to install on a VM and if it's a case that Starwind have supplied the wrong License key type - I've got 2 keys for version 8, one for Hyper-V and one for SQL Server, and both give the same error saying I'm trying to install on a VM, but it needs to be on a 'physical' machine.

Thanks
Jon

[Tarass (Staff)]

Hi, JonSmith.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to install a StarWind Virtual SAN Free version inside a VM. You can install it only on physical servers without Hyper-V role enabled.

https://www.starwindsoftware.com/whitep ... s-paid.pdf

[JonSmith]

OK, thanks Taras.

Unfortunately, when I try and install it on my physical server (Dell R910) it throws up another License error, as it has Hyper-V installed. Thats the nail in the coffin for not using Starwind vSAN any more, as I don't have multiple physical machines available to me and I use this as a Lab environment for trying out different SQL Server features, such as Clustering and Availability Groups, making use of vSAN as a way of loosely simulating SAN and Storage usage that I come across in the real world.

Thanks, anyway. It was fun while it lasted.

Rgds
Jon

[anton (staff)]

Be nice and ask for custom license! For lab use there's no big deal to generate anything covering any scenario you want

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." (c) Gospel of St. Matthew

OK, thanks Taras.

Unfortunately, when I try and install it on my physical server (Dell R910) it throws up another License error, as it has Hyper-V installed. Thats the nail in the coffin for not using Starwind vSAN any more, as I don't have multiple physical machines available to me and I use this as a Lab environment for trying out different SQL Server features, such as Clustering and Availability Groups, making use of vSAN as a way of loosely simulating SAN and Storage usage that I come across in the real world.

Thanks, anyway. It was fun while it lasted.

Rgds
Jon

[JonSmith]

Well, I was nice and believe I asked politely, and after a promising start, it seems that I am not to be granted a Custom license. My last email was at the beginning of December 2015 and I never heard back as to why I had failed to convince Starwind. It seems that St Matthew wasn't with me this day


"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

[darklight]

Hi JonSmith,

There should be no issues in obtaining a custom license if you really need one. You have to contact Starwind guys directly, they are very friendly. Or try to PM Oksana (Staff).

[Anatoly (staff)]

@JonSmith, do you have any update for us please?

[JonSmith]

Hi,

Sorry for the delay...I wasn't expecting reply.

My previous emails have been with Alex Salter (Account Manager) and Alex's reply emails are dated, 04 December 2015 @ 16:34 (GMT), and 04 December 2015 @ 12:16 (GMT). After passing on what I hoped would be enough information to warrant a custom license, I received no further emails since 04 December 2015.

I am happy to put the contents of my initial reply to Alex, below is my first reply...

Hi Alex,

Many thanks for your email and your kind offer of help. Also, thank you for your reply to my forum post yesterday. I realise that I am someone who is a very small operator of your product and not likely to be adding to Virtual SAN’s revenue stream any time soon and so wouldn’t expect any special treatment, but following your reply post I would like to ask if there is any possibility of a custom license that would allow me to use Virtual SAN in a VM environment, if it’s not too much trouble.

For me, I am a SQL Server Consultant/Contractor of some 16 years, specialising in high-performance/VLDB environments. I often work for companies who make use of SANs and Storage, such as EMC Clariion/Symmetrix/VMAX, HP 3PAR/EVA range, Dell EqualLogic, IBM DS range, NetApp FAS/E range, for their SQL Server environments. This includes making use of Clustering and SQL Server AlwaysOn. Industries I have worked in include Insurance and Financials, FMCG, high-volume Internet sales, MMO Video Gaming, and Managed Services.

To help keep my skills and knowledge up-to-date I make use of my own virtualised environment (currently in a Dell R910) and using Starwind’s free Virtual SAN v6 in this virtualised environment allowed me to understand the workings of a SAN and how storage LUNs were presented. My intention was to upgrade to v8 so I could utilise Virtual SAN with the 2-node license, attempting to simulate Geo-Clustering as well as certain parts of AlwaysOn that make use of SAN replication.

I hope I have given you enough information and if this is something you could help with, that would be fantastic. If not, then I would like to say a big thank you to Starwind for offering a free version of Virtual SAN as it has been invaluable to me over the last 3 ½ years I have been using the product.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact me. It’s very much appreciated.

Kind regards
Jon

...and below is my second reply...

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I don’t have my own website any more as I was receiving so many phone calls and emails from people trying to sell me things that it was interfering with my work. I operate by myself and either go through contract agencies or through networking/word-of-mouth for consultancy work.

Just to confirm, the use of Starwind Virtual SAN is purely for my own personal learning and testing purposes and is not used for production and is not used or shared with 3rd parties...
...Should I ever come across a client that may possibly benefit from the use of a software-based SAN environment, then I would have no problem with putting forward Starwind’s Virtual SAN as a possible solution. However, please note that as a SQL Server DBA I doubt that I would be personally involved in any trialling or decision-making for selection the software-based SAN environment solution as it’s not an area of my responsibility or expertise.

I hope this is enough to satisfy Starwind and grant me an NFR license personal non-production, consulting and training purposes.

Thanks again for your help with this.

Kind regards
Jon


It would be great if there is still a possibility of obtaining a custom license. I will keep an eye on this thread over the next few days - and keep my fingers crossed

Again, thanks for your consideration and taking the time to respond.

Jon

[Alex Satler (staff)]

After passing on what I hoped would be enough information to warrant a custom license, I received no further emails since 04 December 2015.

Hi Jon, I have just actually read your post and I do see that I did responded to your e-mail:

The response was the following:

From: Alex Satler
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2015 2:16 PM
To: apsg02@uk2.***
Subject: StarWind license

Hello Jon,

My name is Alex Satler – and I am senior account manager at StarWind Software.

I just read your post on our forum, and I understand you were trying to update to our most recent version 8 but that wouldn’t accept the old license key you have.
In your post you said that, “you were running StarWind in a test lab environment for trying out different SQL Server features, such as Clustering and Availability Groups, making use of vSAN as a way of loosely simulating SAN and Storage usage that you come across in the real world”

To help you more efficiently, I need to understand your need for running such tests. We actually run different programs and I will try to see if you could qualify for any of them in order to obtain NFR license for your test lab.

Also, it would help if you could let me know if you are any of the following:
• Microsoft MVPs
• MCTs (Microsoft Certified Trainers)
• MCPs (Microsoft Certified Professionals)
• SpiceHeads of at least “Jalapeno” level
• SpiceHeads of up to “Poblano” level
• Consultants
• Students
• VMware vExperts
• StarWind VSANCPs (StarWind VSAN Certified Professionals)
• VCPs (VMware Certified Professionals)
• Trainers
• Mangolassi members of reputation 200+
• Bloggers
Jon, please note that StarWind doesn’t provide direct technical assistance for any of its NFR free licenses.
If direct support would be nice to have, I think I may also offer a deal here. In case, if you run solution in non-critical production environment, you could benefit from 50% discount offer on any of our commercial licenses. Prices start as low as $1250 USD per license.
Also, if you need a commercial license for critical production environment, and tier 1 support is required, than I can offer you a fully functional commercial license and offer you 20% discount.
Please note: all discounts are valid till the end of December 2015 only.
In the meantime, I am pleased to offer you the 30-day trial license, which you may use to complete your upgrade.
Jon, please let me know how you wish to proceed and I would be happy to assist you accordingly.
Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any additional questions. It would be my pleasure to further assist you!

Please visit: https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwi ... ense-users to request for NFR license

Please note that sales department has no way to offer any assistance to our clients using free editions and like I stated in my email, such support is offered on this forum, which I do hope you will enjoy using.

[JonSmith]

Hi Alex,

I think you have misread my input. To quote...

After passing on what I hoped would be enough information to warrant a custom license, I received no further emails since 04 December 2015.

Hi Jon, I have just actually read your post and I do see that I did responded to your e-mail:

The response was the following:

From: Alex Satler
Sent: Friday, December 4, 2015 2:16 PM
To: apsg02@uk2.***
Subject: StarWind license

Hello Jon,

My name is Alex Satler – and I am senior account manager at StarWind Software.
...
this forum, which I do hope you will enjoy using.

Your last email was actually this one...

From: Alex Satler [mailto:alex.satler@starwind.com]
Sent: 04 December 2015 16:34
To: Jon
Subject: RE: StarWind license

Hello Jon,

I have good news for you! We actually do offer Virtual SAN Enterprise Edition license to consultants.
We highly value professionals in virtualization sphere and try to support them in their efforts. StarWind offers a special free license that contains all the features of StarWind Virtual SAN and is available to Consultants.
StarWind helps Consultants to cut down virtualization expenses by offering them a free StarWind Virtual VSAN Enterprise edition license. It is a full-fledged hyperconverged version with all features enabled: fault-tolerance and high availability, scale-up and scale-out, asynchronous replication, snapshots, etc. The license comes with a one-year timebomb (resubscription is required) and can be used for personal non-production, consulting and training purposes. License transfer to any third party, including the user’s company, is strictly prohibited.
Jon, would you be so kind to provide a link to your website /URL to other sources, through which you offer your consultancy services.
Having this information will help me to obtain a license for you.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you have any additional questions. It would be my pleasure to further assist you!

...and I replied with the second reply I stated previously, which I have replicated below...

Sent: 08 December 2015 12:54
To: 'Alex Satler' <alex.satler@starwind.com>
Subject: RE: StarWind license

Hi Alex,

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I don’t have my own website any more as I was receiving so many phone calls and emails from people trying to sell me things that it was interfering with my work. I operate by myself and either go through contract agencies or through networking/word-of-mouth for consultancy work.

Just to confirm, the use of Starwind Virtual SAN is purely for my own personal learning and testing purposes and is not used for production and is not used or shared with 3rd parties. Below is a screenshot of my Hyper-V environment…
...
Should I ever come across a client that may possibly benefit from the use of a software-based SAN environment, then I would have no problem with putting forward Starwind’s Virtual SAN as a possible solution. However, please note that as a SQL Server DBA I doubt that I would be personally involved in any trialling or decision-making for selection the software-based SAN environment solution as it’s not an area of my responsibility or expertise.

I hope this is enough to satisfy Starwind and grant me an NFR license personal non-production, consulting and training purposes.

Thanks again for your help with this.

Kind regards
Jon

I never received a reply following my last email (above) to you, which was sent on 08 December. I explained in my last email why I wouldn't be able to supply you with the information you requested but hoped that what I had given you - which included a screenshot of my virtual environment - was enough information for you to grant me a license. That with the fact that I had made use of the free version of Starwind vSAN for more that 3 years - something that I was very grateful to Starwind for. I had heard nothing in response to my last email, having waited a reasonable period of time.

Yes, I was disappointed; especially when I was given such hope in this thread as, and I quote "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." (c) Gospel of St. Matthew. But anyway, I see that after all in this thread I am now given a URI that takes me to a web page where I have to go through the whole process of requesting a custom license again, with no guarantee that I will be granted one.

Oh well. Happy Easter

[Oksana (staff)]

Dear Mr. Smith,
We would be glad to provide you with the NFR license. In order to receive it, please fill in the form on our web site. Here is the link https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwi ... ense-users
Thank you!