Broadcom / VMware debacle

[coolsport00]

Ahhh...that's it! I KNEW there was a post out there. I think you shared on another thread somewhere...I just didn't have it saved anywhere in my Digest (Forum) email folder. Thanks Anton!

[m.novelli]

I just came across this new minimum 72 core licensing from VMware and no more 1 year contract, but I cannot find more info

https://medium.com/weeklycloud/vmwares- ... 8c177d6d7c

Marco

[stevepogue]

Moving to Hyper-V in the late fall.

[Dooh]

I just came across this new minimum 72 core licensing from VMware and no more 1 year contract, but I cannot find more info

https://medium.com/weeklycloud/vmwares- ... 8c177d6d7c

Marco

They will still allow 1 year, but yea, 72 core minimum for Standard or 32 core minimum for the larger packages. It means that the per year minimum is above $4k

[virtualguru]

To share what I'm hearing from one of my partners, Broadcom is now ONLY offering discounts on VCF. If you buy any other license they are not offering discounts no matter what quantity you buy. Broadcom wants VCF to be the only license offering in the future and this is their next step to 'encourage' customers to go that direction.

[Gostev]

Good information, thanks for sharing

[Gostev]

I just came across this new minimum 72 core licensing from VMware and no more 1 year contract, but I cannot find more info

https://medium.com/weeklycloud/vmwares- ... 8c177d6d7c

By the way, this turned to be one huge misunderstanding... it seems Broadcom did not make ANY changes and it's an Arrow-specific change? At least we've just received the following information from our own VMware sales rep:

There has not been any change in our licensing policy. We still have a 16 core minimum per processor. The incorrect information that has been publicized recently on X, LinkedIn and other platforms is from a poorly worded email where distributor Arrow meant to say they have a 72 core order minimum.

The policies outlined in the social media post are not policies that have been shared with the Broadcom employees. As you can, imagine, this has been quite a buzz internally as well. Broadcom does and sometimes will implement a late renewal fee. Most of the policy that was on the social media posting was constructed by Arrow.

16 core minimum is our model. We would have had an internal briefing on this significant of a change that it would have been planned for implementation.

Anyone else hearing the same from their VMware reps?

[NightBird]

We will have a check with our sales rep (France) too.
I will give you a feedback.

[NightBird]

I have had confirmation of our sales rep => « Only noise and fud »

[m.novelli]

Our italian distributor ComputerGross confirmed me some days ago the new 72 cores licensing since 10 April

"Il nuovo licensing a 72 core entrarà in vigore a partire dal 10/04/2025.
Noi accettiamo ordini con il vecchio licensing fino al 28/03"

Very strange this situation

Marco

[NightBird]

I think there is a mismatch between 72 cores min per CPU vs 72 cores min total...
Broadcom plays with words !!!

The 72 cores min entry... per version is a big crap...

[Gostev]

Broadcom plays with words !!!

Broadcom did not issue any announcements that include this number in principle.

All we have is one poorly translated announcement from a French distributor Arrow, and indications from a couple Broadcom reps that this change applies only to customers who procure through this particular distributor, because this distributor decided so.

[m.novelli]

I think the 72 cores minimum per order is true https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comme ... ?rdt=35717

Also our italian Distributor ComputerGross confirmed

Marco

[ITP-Stan]

My reseller also gave me a quote about the total minimum licensed cores being 72 cores.
Not per CPU, but per license order.

[Gostev]

"Per order" means that minimum viable HA cluster (2 ESXi hosts with 2 sockets each) is already practically not impacted by this change? If we take minimal 16 core CPUs. Although I'm hearing currently 32 core CPUs are performance/cost sweet spot.

[m.novelli]

Before this change my sweet spot was

- Single Server with Single AMD CPU 24 cores for 1 to 40/50 users - total 24 cores

- HA with 2 Servers with single AMD CPU 24 cores for more than 40 / 50 users - total 48 cores

This is for a typical SMB market... so new 72 cores minimum licensing is pushing VMware out of SMB market
Broadcom move is clear, just don't know if it's worth completing exiting from this market segment

Marco

[Gostev]

Actually this was my angle too.

1/ Minimum viable HA install is almost unaffected (especially considering number of cores per CPU will continue to grow). While many decent commercial alternatives are HCI and typically require at least 3 hosts.

2/ For single server installs (very low end SMB), alternative hypervisors are abundant, with Hyper-V being the most obvious choice for anyone who tries to stay away from Linux ecosystem, which is typical for low end SMB.

3/ It's the latter group of customers that Broadcom is not interested in, whatever their reasons are.

[MPECSInc]

A detail that needs to be considered here:

80% of VMware revenue comes from 10% of their customers.

That means that 90% of those customers are _cost centers_ for sales, post sales support, and actual software support.

The 72 pCore minimum is a surgical step to carve off that cost centre plain and simple.

[DaStivi]

72core minimum license-order looks like has been withdrawn again ...

[Gostev]

They really can't make up their mind on this can they?

[RubinCompServ]

That means that 90% of those customers are _cost centers_ for sales, post sales support, and actual software support.

You say "cost centers", I say "unofficial beta testers"

[Origin 2000]

Based on the latest Release Notes for ESXi8 the "free" vSphere ESXi Hypervisor is back.

https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmw ... notes.html

Regards,
Joerg

[ITP-Stan]

Veeam B&R can't connect to the API's needed for back-up with the free ESXi version (the API's are blocked by VMware).
So for Veeam B&R this news doesn't really matter.

[MPECSInc]

You say "cost centers", I say "unofficial beta testers"

I think they are costly. It takes a lot of human resources to manage support for the smaller customers. So, get rid of them. They are cost centers.

They don't even factor into the beta testers side of things since the largest customers are running orders of magnitude more virtualization platforms than the bottom 80% of customers.

Cost centers.

[Gostev]

Veeam B&R can't connect to the API's needed for back-up with the free ESXi version (the API's are blocked by VMware).
So for Veeam B&R this news doesn't really matter.

I would not say so: while host-based backup of VMs on free ESXi is not possible, agent-based backup is still possible.

[ITP-Stan]

True, but agent based back-up is always possible, doesn't matter what hypervisor you are using.

[jasonede]

Yet another change coming whereby VCSP program is coming to an end so unless you are a large partner then cannot have a self-hosted cloud. No new commits available to buy after October this year and have to have migrated off by early 2027.