VMware licensing is changing – What you need to know

Following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware on December 11, 2023, the company have announced some major changes to their future licensing which will affect a number of our customers. These changes are as follows:

1. A simplification of their product portfolio.
2. Complete transition to subscription effective immediately.

What these license changes mean for our customers

1. You’ll no longer be able to buy perpetual licenses
   Customers with existing perpetual licenses are encouraged to transition to subscription licenses with incentives offered.
2. End of Support and Subscription renewals on perpetual licenses
   Customers who purchased perpetual licenses can still use them, but once their current SnS contract ends, they will no longer be able to access VMWare Support or update to newer versions. For Trustmarque customers to continue receiving support, they will need to transition to a subscription model.
3. End of Hybrid Purchase Program/Subscription Purchase Program (HPP/SPP) credits
   A lot of larger customers are on these programs whereby they purchase credits and this can be redeemed against a list of products.
4. The New VMware by Broadcom Portfolio:

The VMware by Broadcom portfolio has been simplified, with the number of products available being reduced from 168 to under 10. The three go-to-market solutions are:

• VMware Cloud Foundation
  A fully virtualised data centre which offers vSphere, vSAN, NSX and Aria (prev. vRealize)
• vSphere Foundation
  Aimed at medium/large corporate- Includes vSphere, Aria and Tanzu
• vSphere Standard and Essentials Plus
  For small workloads
• VMware Cloud on Azure/AWS/Google
  VMware Cloud Foundation run within a hyperscaler of choice

In addition, the following VMware by Broadcom products can be purchased as add-on’s to the above bundles:

• VMware vSAN
• VMware Firewall
• VMware Private AI Cloud
• VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery

All of these offerings are subscription-based, and are priced per core.

Broadcom have also removed VMware Carbon Black, WorkspaceOne and Horizon from the VMware banner. These business units will now trade as autonomous businesses within Broadcom.

Recommendations for our impacted customers

• Assess current compliance position
  If there are any shortfalls, these will now need to be purchased under a subscription model.
• Understand where support is required
  If renewal is imminent, the customer needs to understand where support is required and whether any of their estates can continue to operate without support.
• Work with them to understand trade-in options
  It’s likely VMware will offer favourable pricing to customers making the shift to subscriptions early. This is where Trustmarque can support you if you would like to understand the cost-effectiveness of transitioning early or waiting until renewal.

UPDATE: As of Monday, January 15th, Broadcom informed all of its OEM partners (including Dell, Lenovo, HPE) that they will no longer accept quotes, new orders, new Enterprise License Agreements (ELAs), or renewals. In short, OEM licensing for VMware is no longer available, and all orders moving forward must be placed directly with VMware (via distribution) under the new licensing models.