vSphere 5 was launched almost a year ago and with much discussions around their new vRAM based licensing model. Personally the whole idea makes sense to me especially considering the evolution to cloud computing and determining a common measurement to find the least expensive place to run your virtual machines and applications. If a public cloud provider charge $X per GB vRAM then your private cloud needs to be able to do it for $X minus a little bit or provide a better service that makes it worth the additional cost. I am frequently asked if it’ll cost more to run a VM/app in vSphere 5 versus vSphere 4. Luckily “there’s an app for that”.
Here’s the link to the VMware tool to check vSphere 5 licensing entitlements.
I also recommend watching this video by one of my former vSpecialists colleagues to show you how to use it.
http://www.virtu-al.net/2011/08/11/vmware-license-advisorofficial-tool/