VMWare opens academic pricing to non-profits!

This just in from my Dell rep, and confirmed by several in the CITRT Twitterverse: VMWare has opened up their academic pricing to non-profits. Jason Powell has the pricing information at his blog. The relevant bits from VMWare:

Definition and Requirements of a Non-Profit Entity for Eligibility to Participate in the VMware Academic Buying Program:
The following U.S. Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(c) are eligible to participate in the VMware Academic Buying Program.

  • Non-Profits are defined under U.S.Tax Code 501(c)(3) as an organization which is organized and operated exclusively for one of the following purposes:
    • Religious
    • Charitable
    • Scientific
    • Literary
    • Educational
    • In the prevention of cruelty to children or animals
    • In the testing for public safety
    • Fostering national or international amateur sports competition
  • Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(d) Religious or Apostolic Organizations
  • Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(e) Cooperative Health Services provided to Hospitals
  • Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(f) Cooperative Service Organizations of Operating Educational Organizations providing cooperative investment services for Educational Organizations
  • Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(k) Child Care Organizations which supply child care to children with working parents
  • Non-Profits under U.S. Tax Code 501(n) Charitable Risk Pools which pools insurance risks of 501(c) (3) Organizations

Not all nonprofits qualify, of course:

U.S. Organizations not eligible to participate in the VMware Academic Buying Program:

  • U.S. Tax Code 501(c) 1 Non-Profits as defined as Corporate Organization under Acts of Congress, or as Instrumentalities of the United States.
  • U.S. Tax Code 501(c) 2 Non-Profits as defined as Title Holding Corporations for Exempt Organizations, or those who hold title to property owned by Exempt Organizations.
  • Organizations filed under 501(c) (4 through 27). This includes:
    • Teachers’ Retirement Fund Associations
    • Domestic Fraternal Societies and Associations
    • Fraternal Beneficiary Societies and Associations
    • Social and Recreation Clubs
    • Business Leagues, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate Boards, etc.
    • Labor, Agricultural, and Horticultural Organizations
    • Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees
    • Political organizations
    • Labor or fraternal organizations
  • Other Organizations not eligible:
    • Organizations that are an integral part of local government or have governmental powers
    • Hospitals not wholly owned by a University
    • Health Management organizations (HM)
    • Preferred Provider organization (PPO)
    • Non-profits that are not charitable organizations or act as non-profit lobbying groups
    • Private Foundations
    • Academic facilities that qualify for Academic status.

If you’re not in the US, same sort of deal applies, if your organization is equivalently defined as non-profit under your local tax codes. Contact your VMWare reseller for details.

Say Whaaaaaaaa?????

The last few days have been rather stressful.. Our shiny new web infrastructure at COR has been throwing major temper tantrums, which means I’ve been rather busy of late. Today, it melted down half a dozen times after I thought I’d fixed it. Each time it did something different. (and if that wasn’t enough excitement, our upstream provider had a BGP issue this morning that knocked their entire customer base off the web for about 5 minutes)

All you folks that hit our website, thank you for your patience. These have been trying times.

This morning, I noticed something very odd. And again this evening as I’m migrating the data to a new server.

root@corweb1:/content/sites# uptime
11:35:56 up -24855 days, -3:-14,  4 users,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

Negative uptime??? What?

root@corweb1:/content/sites# date
Wed Aug 31 11:50:17 CDT 1955

Perhaps running apt-get install flux-capacitor wasn’t such a good idea, as the machine seems to be performing on about the level of a computer from 1955.

It’s become pretty obvious that something is very ill on that box, and I think it’s time to ditch VMWare Server for ESXi. Until then, we’re moving the servers over to the bare metal on the other box (which includes the blog server, it’s already been moved).

Last login: Wed Aug 31 11:44:51 1955 from XXXX.kc.res.rr.com

No wonder I feel old.