In November 2023, a major shift occurred in the technology sector when Broadcom acquired VMware for an impressive $69 billion. Despite the early announcement of the acquisition, many did not anticipate the extensive impact and were unprepared for the enduring effects that these changes would trigger.  

This has posed a significant challenge, especially for companies that depend on VMware for their data center operations. Following the significant changes resulting from the acquisition, some organizations will choose to maintain their current course for stability, while others may contemplate completely shifting away from VMware. 

We caught up with our Senior Presales Architect, Matt Griffin, to get his take on the situation and to uncover key considerations for companies moving forward.  

In your opinion, what’s the argument for staying on VMware? 

 
There’s a number of different facets to this decision. Most organizations have made a big investment in people and talent to manage their VMWare environment. That’s a key consideration and an advantage to staying on it. Also, if we’re being honest, VMware still has the most robust feature set. It’s been the top dog for over 15 years now and they haven’t stopped working on it. It operates extremely well, especially when you’re talking about features like replication, disaster recovery, automated resource scheduling, software-based networking, etc. Now, that’s not to say that the top contenders like Nutanix and Red Hat don’t have some very compelling equivalents to those functions. And those equivalents are getting better all the time.  

In terms of deciding whether to stick or pivot, it really behooves people to do POCs and labs and things of that nature to see how alternative technologies might feel in the real world. VMware’s licensing and feature set is maybe 50 or 60 items long, but there are probably only 5 features that make all the difference to the majority of the users. 

Unfortunately, if you’re a VMware shop that enjoys the Aria Suite, then you’ve been automictically pushed into the Foundation Level, which is pricey. If your business really leverages VMware and some of its more obscure feature sets, then you might see a pretty bad financial hit from this acquisition. However, one of most prized features of VMware is Storage vMotion which used to only be included in Enterprise Plus. It’s now included in the Standard level. It’s worth talking to your reseller to run some licensing scenarios to see if you can actually get a price break. 

In the specific use case of organizations who were only on Enterprise Plus for Storage vMotion, they might actually be able to realize cost savings. They can now step down to Standard, provided they weren’t using other features that are now only offered in Foundation. 

 
What have you heard from clients is the biggest pain point in this situation?  

 
The vast majority of people I’ve talked to who are pretty upset about what’s happened acknowledge that they might just have to kick the can down the road another year while they figure out what to do next. Your virtualization environment is not something you just turn over easily. Many people are terrified of the migration. In my opinion, they should be more worried about the loss of the feature set and the tech debt to personnel. The  migration’s not that bad, and we’ve done it a few times. Both Nutanix and Red Hat have very robust migration utilities. By and large, the clients we have on Nutanix love it. With Red Hat Virtualization, it’s still early days. We’ll know more in a few months how much culture shock is happening for those who make the jump. 

Once they get over that transition period, we’ve seen some relief. Again, speaking to Nutanix, people find that it works exactly as promised, which is great. There’s still going to be down time, obviously. It’s going to be a weekend at least depending on how big your enterprise is. But the actual migration is pretty darn easy. 

The second pain point has to do with licensing. Broadcom has cut many VMware resellers from its partner program.  They’ve re-bundled licenses, banned license reselling, and refused to maintain some contracts for perpetual licenses. You no longer get the same efficiencies of scale by bundling servers and licenses through other vendors. Broadcom has also cut discount programs that helped non-profits afford VMware. virtual machines. There’s definitely some pain there. 

You talked about clients really enjoying Nutanix. Is it a strong alternative if you want to keep the look and feel you’re used to with VMware? 

 
Okay, let’s say I’m a no code, no Linux guy. VMware feels good to me. It’s very GUI forward and sensible. It’s got great click-it-and-move-it-around energy. Nutanix is where you go to keep a similar look and feel. I’d say this is even the easier path, although it’ll cost you. Nutanix isn’t cheap.  

There are other risks involved, because you’re now on hyperconverged. That means that if you were to undersize your storage and oversize your compute, when you inevitably need more storage, you’re going to have to buy yet more compute. You can’t hook a SAN up to hyperconverged and that can be frustrating, but again the look and feel is there.  

VxRail users in particular have been really frustrated by uncertainty and inability to purchase VSAN licensing. Dell is bringing back their XC line, which is Nutanix on Dell servers, and I think that’s a significant move to consider. 

What’s the argument for embracing automation and container initiatives by moving to something like Red Hat OpenShift? 

Sure, let’s flip it around and consider Red Hat. To review, initially there was Docker as a container platform, which is the format that RedHat OpenShift uses. Then there was RedHat Ansible, an automation platform. Red Hat has now added a virtualization platform, which they call OpenShift Virtualization. Underneath it all is the classic Linux-based KVM hypervisor which is what Nutanix is based on as well, called Acropolis. It’s an open-source hypervisor that dozens of companies have taken, tweaked, and released as their own products. 

For what Red Hat is doing, it makes perfect sense to have virtualization and containerization running side by side, because underneath them is the same hypervisor. No point in spinning up two different hypervisors to do the same thing. But that also means that this product, this strategy, is young. They’re still feeling their way around the virtualization aspect. It’s the newest kid on the block.  

Going with the “new kid on the block” is always going to be risky, right?  

 
Sure there’s a risk. Absolutely. Currently, it’s just a bit “feature poor” compared to VMware or even Nutanix. With the Nutanix strategy, if you’re willing to roll with the punches, it’s pretty close to the VMware you’re used to. Nutanix is probably like 95% there. OpenShift is more like 70% there with VMs, but then they’re the top dog for containers and automation.  

For at least 6 or 7 years, everyone’s had a containerization strategy and an automation strategy, and they’ve probably failed at both because they’re challenging undertakings. To take existing applications and strip them down to the component pieces and then containerize them fully is a big task. Automation holds a similar challenge. It’s great, it’s nice to have, we all should be doing it, etc. But to be honest… automating minor tasks are the last thing you’re thinking about when everything else is on fire. It’s human to fall back to fixing things the way they’ve always been fixed before. There’s a philosophical shift that still needs to happen for an enterprise to truly turn towards automation as fundamental. 

All that said, the risk is also the opportunity. Coming into Red Hat OpenShift, you get the leading containerization platform and the leading automation platform. Leaning into those new strategies while ALSO trying to figure out your virtualization platform will be an uphill climb. But hey, now that the Band-Aid’s been ripped off, you’re off to the races. You can start using the stuff that you’ve been avoiding. There’s opportunity there.

Let’s talk about what the cloud alternative looks like. 


Sure. Taking a step back first, 10 years ago it was projected that the cloud would eat everything up and that the time to migrate was upon us. And a lot of organizations did it. They had a massively painful migration and then the first bill came in and it was like… “Holy ****! Pull it back!” But the first, big, industry-wide cloud “win” happened when Microsoft released Office 365. Everybody got rid of their Exchange servers, and it worked out.  

The next phase saw organizations move into vendor cloud platforms for whatever bulky, industry-specific, business-essential application their organization uses. And those work pretty well. The applications stay patched. They stay up. They stay current. 

The thing that doesn’t work super well in the cloud yet is plain old VMs. Regular virtualization struggles up there. In reality, we’ve all got 50% of our VMs kind of hanging out until they’re needed. Like Jerry in accounting needs to log into it once a month to run his TPS reports. Having a VM sit up in the cloud running the meter is a lot different than having it down here in a cluster doing nothing. Containers are how the cloud wants to work, so you’re back to figuring out how to implement a containerization strategy to get the cloud working most cost-efficiently for you.

If you’re game to work on a containerization strategy to get to the cloud, which product or vendor do you recommend?  

I wanted to preface all of that in order to talk about Azure Stack. Azure Stack is an in-house stack of hardware running Azure and you manage it via your Azure portal, the same one you use for managing Azure cloud. It’s a way to get your feet wet in the cloud without necessarily being in the cloud. To get there from VMware, you must convert your VMs into Azure format. Once they’re converted, they’re easy to move up to Azure. You can pop them up there and if you don’t like it, if the bill’s changed too much, you can easily pull them back down. And in the meantime, now you’ve got a little cloud environment going on that is very container friendly, much like OpenShift. You can start working on your containerization initiative from there. 

I guess this is really the question of the day but, if someone is really struggling to pick a strategy, how would you suggest they proceed here?  

I think the decision ultimately comes down to skill sets in your organization. If you have a strong Linux team and a compelling strategy to containerize and automate your environment, then dive into Red Hat OpenShift or even accelerate your cloud journey with Azure Stack. If you’re looking for a feature comparable look and feel, with ease of acquisition and transition, then work with VMWare’s new strategy and pricing or decide to pivot to Nutanix. 

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We hope you enjoyed this open and honest conversation! In closing, IT professionals must adapt to new licensing models, product bundles, support systems, and financial challenges this acquisition created. If you need assistance evaluating your options, Volta (and Matt!) can help. Whether you’re focusing on how to stick with VMware or considering other paths, we’ve got the expertise, insights, and partnerships to help you make informed decisions that align with your business goals.