Moving Away from VMware? Keep Your Options Open

Don’t let Broadcom’s timelines force you into moving to subscription support before you’re ready.

Tens of thousands of customers have been looking to fully or partially move away from VMware since Broadcom announced plans to lock its product portfolio behind two subscription-based bundles back in 2023, canceling perpetual license support and sales in the process. While a small percentage of companies might know their next steps and what they need to do to achieve them, many are still unsure about the process they’ll follow or how they will go about implementing changes.

It’s important to develop a plan as soon as possible, even if you’re thinking about moving some or all your current perpetual license workloads to a corresponding bundle. Here are a few points to consider when deciding what comes next for your virtualized components and their software.

Should you move to subscription support for a VMware Bundle?

In some cases, moving certain workloads to a corresponding bundle might be the right technical or financial move for your business. The tight timelines that Broadcom issued might make a move to bundled VMware products the only realistic short-term option. But wherever your plans take you, do not take the decision to trade in your perpetual licenses lightly.

By moving to a subscription-based VMware bundle, you do get the benefit of ongoing support and updates. But unless you’re among VMware’s 2,000 top customers, there’s a good chance your overall costs will see a significant uptick (up to 1,500% in some cases, according to reports), and you’ll end up paying a repeated subscription charge instead of moving on with your perpetual, paid-for licenses.

Moreover, Broadcom is known for “milking” its newly acquired customers when it buys into new companies. Moving dependent customers onto a recurring payment scheme will allow the new VMware owner to increase prices again as it sees fit – a move that would be consistent with Broadcom’s stated goal of increasing the platform’s revenue by billions over the next three years.

Are There Other Options for Perpetually Licensed VMware Customers?

Competing virtualization and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) providers have established themselves as compelling alternatives in recent years, and options beyond virtualization might be feasible in certain business cases. A few options perpetually licensed VMware customers have been exploring include:

• Right-sizing VMware reliance. For some companies, moving to new hardware with more technical muscle to support virtualization activity is the right choice. Changing configurations tied to the virtualized estate can also reduce the number of licenses needed, and your reliance on VMware.
• Full lift-and-shift to new platforms or the cloud. VMware is as large as it is for a reason and finding an alternative that covers all enterprise use cases with minimal disruption can be challenging. However, difficult doesn’t mean impossible, and making an effective move is possible with the right level of planning in place.
• Exploring beyond virtualization. Practices like containerization are widely considered to be the next major move forward for modernizing businesses. However, making such a dramatic change to an existing virtualized estate is not a fast or easy job. It’s a complex enough change that leaping in as a reaction to sudden VMware changes might not be possible, particularly for businesses that haven’t begun laying groundwork.

Beyond technical questions, the biggest blocker in all three scenarios is time.

Moving to a new virtualization platform can require years to plan and implement. If a company that is still on an active SnS feels like it only has until the end of the agreement to make such a serious change or risk losing support for the virtualized hardware they rely on, it’s easy to see why many of the customers opting for a Broadcom bundle only make the leap because they think they must.

Explore a hybrid support model for your existing VMware estate

If you haven’t been in the process of reducing your reliance on VMware since Broadcom’s bundle announcement, time is running out to make the change before your current version will expire. However, that doesn’t mean you need to migrate your entire estate to one of two Broadcom bundles to make sure you retain support and maintenance.

Under a hybrid support model, an independent software maintenance vendor like Origina can help you figure out which workloads must move immediately to a bundled alternative and which perpetual licenses you can safely keep, either permanently or until you’ve moved to another chosen platform. That can include short-term plans and support for longer-term goals like migration and re-platforming.

Once you have your plan laid out, your independent provider will continue to support and maintain any VMware perpetual licenses you decide to retain. Your company can then build a cohesive, multiyear virtualization roadmap with minimal disruption, while having an expert on hand to help guide the planning and execution phases.

Moving to a Broadcom bundle is only one of the options for perpetually licensed customers grappling with all the change, and in many use cases it is far from the best one available. Rather than permanently losing your licenses due to the pressing time constraints, make sure you fully understand all your options before moving forward.

Keep your VMware® perpetual licenses. Talk to Origina about your VMware maintenance and support options.