VMware! Bring back the VMTN Subscription (Please!) by Mike Laverick

These past few days there has been a lot of buzz around the VMTN Subscription. Mike Laverick started a community post on this and wrote a blogpost about the VMTN subscriptions. To support his case, I copied his original post here. Before you read Mike’s post I would like to add my own two cents…  I most certainly think that a lot of VMware enthousiasts would like to get the VMTN Subscription back. Often the 60 days trial license is not enough since you don’t want to install and see that it works, you want to dive deep into what the product has to offer. Run it in your home lab or at work in a lab and break it on purpose, try to recover it, etc. A lot of products are complimentary to each other. If I want to test VMware SRM 5 I need a vCenter install and of course ESXi. If I want to test VMware View 5, I again need vCenter 5. With a 60 day trial I would spent a lot of time continuously rebuilding a basic environment.  A subscription with a one year license for a wide range of products is needed. By creating a new VMTN program I think VMware would get even more admins enthousiastic about the non-mainstream products like the INFRASTRUCTURE & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT suite. Please VMware, reinstate the VMTN Subscription.

By Mike Laverick: Today I want to start a campaign within the VMware Community. I would like to see VMware re-instate the “VMTN Subscription”. You might ask, what the hell is that? That would be fair enough because it was withdrawn many years ago, and never re-instated by VMware.

The VMTN Subscription (I found this link on Google which is still active posted in 2005) was similar to Microsoft MSDN or TechNet – where for relatively small yearly fee you could download the core enterprise software and run it for 1year. Right now there is whole legion of home-labbers out there that have to make do and mend with evaluations that expire after 60-days. Sadly, the VMTN Subscription program was cancelled in 2007 and never re-instated.

Now as former VMware Certified Instructor and vExpert – if I wanted NFR style licenses I can get to them. Although I would have to say throughout all my time working with VMware its been also been a struggle gaining access to software and licenses – as independent guy not affiliated to partner…. That’s mainly because an evaluation download doesn’t always give me access to ALL the software I need to do my kind of work. It’s often been a frustration, and I’ve often need to call upon my personal network to get hold of bits that seemed impossible to get through legitimate means. My concern is not so much for myself as I’m generally a well-connected dude – but for the many thousands of loyal VMware supports in their homelabs. VMware has one of the best user communities on the planet. I personally believe that without the “bottom up” support of thousands of enthusiasts who teach themselves VMware in their home labs, who then go on to recommend software to the customers, clients and businesses – VMware wouldn’t be as half as successful as it is without this legion of unpaid evangelist for their cause.

So, VMware. Bring back the VMTN Subscription or make it part of the VMUG Advantage package.

If you want to register your thoughts/views/opinions for this idea – add your +1 to this forum post here.