Change has a knack for sending us into uncharted waters. And when change comes knocking without warning, especially in the form of the VMware licensing updates introduced by Broadcom, it’s natural to feel adrift without a flare. Many of our customers are currently pondering these changes, with reactions ranging from mild concern to an urgent reassessment of their cloud strategies.
But it’s not all doom and gloom, despite the general vibe in Internet forums and vendor blogs. In many cases, sticking with VMware can become an opportunity to optimize your economic and operational ecosystems — if you let it.
First, let’s go over what changed:
- Perpetual VMware licenses are gone. Instead of paying for a VMware license once, you now have to buy a monthly VMware subscription.
- If you already paid for perpetual licenses, you can use them until your agreement ends or your maintenance period expires. After that, they’ll no longer be supported.
- Broadcom switched up its partner program by terminating all existing partnerships and awarding new ones. Formerly authorized partners who didn’t get an invite to the new program can only sell VMware through authorized resellers and service partners like us.
- Broadcom now charges based on cores instead of memory.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but the primary implication that everyone’s worried about is cost. Yet in reality — when infrastructure is optimized properly — Broadcom’s changes don’t automatically make anything more expensive. We’ve even helped customers reduce VMware costs because of the new subscription model. (Really.)
Adopting the subscription model just requires a thorough understanding of current usage against what you’ve purchased, predicting VMware costs under the new model, and right-sizing your infrastructure for core-based pricing.
Is it easy? No. But it’s doable, and we’re willing to put in the work.
Adapting to a subscription-based model that’s here to stay
Looking ahead, the ability to adapt to a shifting licensing landscape will be critical. Regardless of the strategy you choose, our team can make your path forward a successful one:
- We’ve been awarded VMware by Broadcom Premier Partner status due to our demonstrated excellence across multiple VMware solutions.
- We operate on a larger scale, so we can pass discounted pricing on to customers.
- Decades of experience with VMware mean we know how to right-size your workloads for performance and cost.
- Our team can optionally take care of migrating, monitoring, and maintaining your VMware deployment for you. Our cloud migration service will make the transition so smooth, your end-users won’t even notice a ripple.
Our experienced cloud team is ready to assist, whether you’re adapting to the VMware changes or considering a new virtualization direction.
How to make a decision before moving forward
The silver lining in this scenario is the luxury of time. Rushed decisions are rarely good ones, and the collective wisdom suggests a thoughtful approach to choosing the best path forward for your organization.
This is where our team’s expertise becomes invaluable. Deft never pushes a “one solution fits all” approach. We’ll have your back and evaluate the best fit for your ecosystem. While we don’t anticipate anyone needing to exit VMware with the right-sized setup, we’re already testing proof-of-concept alternatives should that ever change.
If you want to see how we can save on your VMware costs under Broadcom’s new model, reach out to our team. We’ll help you navigate these changes and come out on top.
