Meet the Presenters

Matthew Good

• Principal Architect, ANM
• 25+ years of data center experience
• 8+ years with ANM
• Experience across customer, vendor, and VAR organizations
• Specializes in multi-domain architecture, design, and deployments

Fun Fact: Previously owned a rodeo bull while living in Colorado.

Chad Olson

• Senior Solutions Architect, ANM
• 25+ years of infrastructure experience
• Hybrid Cloud Architecture
• Cyber Resiliency
• Zero Trust
• Public Cloud Innovation
• Data Protection & Management

Fun Fact: Can play Careless Whisper on the saxophone.

VMware by Broadcom Licensing Changes

Key Changes

• VMware is moving to a subscription-only licensing model.
• Perpetual licenses are end-of-sale.
• OEM perpetual licensing is also ending.
• Dell VxRail remains an exception for certain perpetual licensing scenarios.
• Broadcom has consolidated standalone products into subscription bundles.
• The free ESXi license has been discontinued.

Horizon & Carbon Black

Broadcom has announced plans to divest:

• VMware Horizon
• Carbon Black

Customers with upcoming renewals should work with VMware and ANM
while these product transitions are finalized.

What Happens to Existing VMware Licenses?

• Active support contracts remain valid until expiration.
• Perpetual licenses may continue to be used.
• Expired support cannot be renewed.
• Additional perpetual licenses cannot be purchased.
• Organizations should begin planning migration to subscription licensing.

VMware Subscription Offerings

vSphere Essentials Plus Kit

• Designed for small environments
• Supports up to three hosts
• Includes vCenter Essentials
• 96-core licensing package
• No per-core minimum licensing requirement

vSphere Standard

• Per-core licensing
• 16-core minimum per CPU
• Available in one-, three-, and five-year subscriptions

VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF)

Includes:

• vSphere Enterprise Plus
• Tanzu Kubernetes Grid
• vCenter Standard
• vSAN Enterprise (100 GiB per core)
• Aria Suite Standard

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)

Includes everything in VVF plus:

• Full vSAN Enterprise licensing
• NSX Networking
• Aria Suite Enterprise
• HCX Enterprise
• SDDC Manager
• Enhanced VMware support

License Conversion Guide

Current VMware editions convert as follows:

• Enterprise Plus → VMware vSphere Foundation
• Enterprise → VMware vSphere Foundation
• vSphere Desktop → VMware vSphere Foundation
• vSphere Scale-Out → VMware vSphere Foundation
• NSX deployments → VMware Cloud Foundation
• vCloud Suite → VMware Cloud Foundation

NSX Licensing Changes

Organizations using VMware NSX for networking or security should expect
to migrate to VMware Cloud Foundation licensing.

Networking Features

• Virtual Routing
• Virtual Switching
• Layer 2 Extension

Security Features

• Distributed Firewall
• Security Intelligence
• Advanced Threat Protection
• Intrusion Detection
• Intrusion Prevention
• Malware Prevention

vSAN Capacity Licensing

• VVF includes 100 GiB of vSAN capacity per licensed core.
• VCF includes 1 TiB of vSAN capacity per licensed core.
• Organizations exceeding included capacity can purchase additional vSAN licensing.

Available VMware Add-ons

• NSX Firewall
• Advanced Threat Protection
• Avi Load Balancer
• VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery
• Tanzu Intelligence
• Site Recovery Manager

Estimating Future Licensing Costs

To estimate licensing costs, organizations should collect:

• VMware inventory
• Host count
• CPU core count
• vSAN capacity

Recommended tools include:

• RVTools
• VMware PowerCLI Scripts
• VMware KB 95927

A&M also provides an internal licensing calculator that compares
VMware subscription options and estimated costs.

Alternatives to VMware

Alternative Hypervisors

• Nutanix AHV
• Microsoft Hyper-V
• Oracle KVM
• Proxmox
• Scale Computing

VMware Cloud Platforms

• VMware Cloud on AWS
• Azure VMware Solution
• Google Cloud VMware Engine

Native Public Cloud Platforms

• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• Microsoft Azure
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Networking Alternatives

• Cisco ACI
• Cisco Nexus Dashboard
• Arista CloudVision

Security Alternatives

• Akamai Guardicore
• Illumio
• Cisco Secure Workload

These agent-based platforms provide micro-segmentation without requiring
VMware NSX Distributed Firewall.

Recommended Next Steps

1. Engage with an ANM engineer.
2. Collect VMware inventory information.
3. Gather CPU core counts.
4. Capture vSAN capacity.
5. Determine the appropriate VMware subscription bundle.
6. Run ANM’s licensing calculator.
7. Evaluate VMware alternatives where appropriate.
8. Attend an ANM Cyber Resilient Architecture (CRA) Workshop.

Questions & Answers

The webinar concluded with audience questions covering topics including:

• Educational licensing discounts
• Carbon Black’s future ownership
• VMware Horizon’s acquisition by KKR
• Mixed licensing environments
• NASPO purchasing requirements
• Migration from existing VMware subscription bundles

Because Broadcom continues to update VMware licensing, organizations
should work closely with A&M to stay informed of future changes.

Closing Remarks

Thank you for attending Straight Talk on VMware by Broadcom Licensing Changes.
If you have questions regarding VMware licensing, migration planning,
subscription costs, or alternative virtualization platforms, please
contact A&M. The presentation slides will be made available following
the webinar.