How to Buy VM Express
VM Express is a combined software and services solution. Software is required to
reconstruct VMs from consolidated source images. Professional services are required
to create optimized, consolidated images. Contact
Prowess directly for more information on using VM Express for your VM distribution
programs.
Software
VM Express can be purchased in two editions: VM Express Basic and VM Express Professional.
VM Express Professional is a web services-enlightened VM distribution service that
consists of a hosted catalog and a client application. VM Express Professional is
ideal for large volumes of content that are updated or refreshed regularly. Core
content is distributed on optical media and content updates can be distributed over
the web or through additional media distributions. The VM Express client connects
to the hosted catalog via web services and caches catalog data locally allowing
you to add or remove catalog content at any time.
VM Express Basic uses the same imaging technology as VM Express Professional, but
it does not include the web services component. VM Express Basic is ideal for situations
where large volumes of images need to be distributed at once, and when no incremental
updates are expected. The self-contained solution uses the same client as VM Express
Professional to reconstruct VMs from images on optical media.
Services
Prowess has a thriving consulting practice that delivers the professional services
for VM Express. Prowess has all of the tools and the engineering talent to deliver
the optimal solution for your audience and your deliverables. Image sets can be
optimized for size on media and for future download efficiency based upon the architecture
of the payloads, anticipated update content, and timing of distribution.
Licensing
Our goal is to make VM deployment faster, easier, and cheaper—to make your distribution
program more successful, not to let things like a complicated licensing model get
in the way. VM Express licensing is simply based on a price per user-recipient.
You probably have a list of intended recipients, but you want to encourage use and
they may pass the media along to a colleague or to a team. Under the model, you
only pay a license fee for each piece of media going out to the target user regardless
of the number of times and places they deploy the content.
Because VM Express Professional and VM Express Basic have different capabilities
and operational models they are licensed slightly differently.
- VM Express Professional is delivered as a service, so it is licensed as a service
with a low monthly fee per user.
- VM Express Basic has a perpetual user license with a one-time fee for a single deliverable.
Licensing Scenarios
Scenario 1 – VM Express Basic: One-time distribution
If you are distributing a large volume of content, VM Express Basic can save you
money by reducing the number of discs to build, duplicate, and ship. For a single
distribution, you pay a single, one-time licensing fee. Prowess will consolidate
your content into a monolithic image set using the exclusive VM Express imaging
technology, and then master media for distribution along with the VM Express client.
Scenario 2 – VM Express Basic: Annual update
As a follow on to your large distribution, you want to provide an annual update
to your user base to keep their content fresh. Using VM Express Basic you can pay
another one-time licensing fee to provide an update to content. Now, you can not
only reduce data through consolidation, but you further reduce data volume by using
the common files from your last distribution but not be required to pay monthly
fees.
Scenario 3 – VM Express Professional: Large release with monthly updates
If you have a large VM distribution program with regular updates, VM Express Professional
delivers ultimate efficiency and flexibility by allowing you to release updates
at any time over the web. Large updates or disconnected users can receive media
updates that leverage the master media content saving you time and money. Because
VM Express Professional also uses web services, the connection and download data
are logged providing you with valuable usage data. You pay a small monthly fee per
user.
Scenario 4 – Blended solution: One-time distribution with follow-on updates
Because of the architecture of VM Express, you can change models on demand. For
example, you may start with a static set of content and then decide to perform a
small update six months later. You would pay a one-time fee for your initial distribution,
then at the time you wanted to release updates over the web you would change to
VM Express Professional and pay a monthly fee per user thereafter.
For more information, please contact Prowess
at (206) 443-1117.