“UPDATED 5/10/24 – VMC service will remain operational however you will not be able to transact through AWS”
“STOP THE INSANITY” isn’t a phrase that’s familiar to Broadcom, considering the various changes over the last 60-90 days. They’ve discontinued free versions of VMware products, such as vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) and vCenter Server, forcing customers to upgrade to paid subscriptions. They also ended perpetual licensing options and started bundling multiple products into a single offering, increasing costs and reducing customer flexibility. Broadcom terminated contracts with channel partners and reduced VMware’s workforce, potentially impacting product development, support, and the overall customer experience. Additionally, they introduced new licensing models and pricing structures, which may be less favorable for smaller businesses and organizations, and their focus on cost-cutting and profitability may lead to reduced investment in research and development.
In the latest customer debacle, Broadcom decided to abandon VMware’s first-party service, VMC, on AWS as VMware directly provided support for the service. So, there will be no more new subscriptions, quotes will be invalid, and customers will be left wondering what’s next across all the hyperscalers. Don’t panic; workloads will continue to run.. for now.
VMware directly supported VMC on AWS, which ran on a separate code base and release cycle from the on-premise versions. Azure VMware Solution (AVS) and Google Cloud VMware Engine run the same code base and release cycles as the on-premise versions, making it easier for Broadcom to support moving forward. Considering Broadcom’s vision to have portability across all VMware service providers and the fact that VMware resources supported VMC on AWS, this move doesn’t come as a surprise; however, the speed and ambiguity are completely maddening.
For our historians, the original Azure VMware offering was provided by CloudSimple. Google purchased CloudSimple, and Microsoft pivoted to creating its own offering, now known as AVS. Google just signed an agreement at the beginning of 2024 to support license portability for VCF (VMware Cloud Foundations) into Google Cloud VMware Engine. So it appears GCVE & AVS are in a much better place than AWS.
What this does to VCDR is the other elephant in the room. Many customers adopted VCDR and VMC on AWS as an easy way to protect workloads at a “reasonable” cost. Now we just sit and wait to see how this unfolds, and I can tell you, customers are not happy. Here are some of the high-level benefits of VCDR
We’ve seen other hyperscalers have to deal with ripping the band-aid off and starting from scratch so it will be interesting to see how quickly AWS reacts with their own customized offering. Stay Tuned!
