The Future of Virtualization - Strategic Guidance for VMware and Alternatives
The Broadcom acquisition of VMware has raised concerns in the business community. In this blog post, CDW aims to clarify the strategic vision that is considered essential for users of the product to understand.
Broadcom is changing how VMware is packaging their solutions and licensing. This is a good thing for those who are using more advanced solutions beyond vSphere, as you’d get most of them in a package for a lower price than you were paying on the “à la carte” system. For those who want to add monitoring but are shocked with the price of vRealize (now called Aria) Operations/Log Insight, the fact that the vSphere Foundation (VVF) licences now come with these features at a price that’s comparable to the prior cost of Enterprise Plus licensing may come as a surprise. For smaller customers, the fact that basic Essential licenses and ESXi are now end of life means it’ll be more expensive for them, and the Remote Office & Branch Offices licences are also increasing in price.
For an understanding of the new packages, if you run Enterprise Plus (Including vCenter) currently with one or two other VMware products, you’ll benefit from the Cloud Foundation (VCF) licensing with a lot of possibilities to protect and automate your environment more effectively. If you only run Enterprise Plus, and you renew to VVF, you’ll get more for your money by having log analytics and monitoring solutions added, which can cost quite a lot with other vendors as well.
In strategic terms, you’d get more for about the same price, but it isn’t always like this. I’d suggest thinking about what goals you are trying to achieve with the platform and how to achieve them. Are you seeing an increase in value in your platform with those as well in terms of automation, orchestration, monitoring, networking or security? We personally think that this observation is the most important part of understanding the new licensing model.
What to consider when seeking vSphere alternatives
For those also looking at vSphere alternatives, we want to make sure that you understand the impact it could have on your strategy and budget, as this is a big part of the equation in making sure alternative solutions are a good or bad move for you. We call it the iceberg in the room, as often there are visible and hidden risks in selecting alternative solutions in your data centre or enterprise.
- What is the impact of a change of platform on your team?
- Do changes to your business platforms have a significant impact?
Here are some of the more obvious challenges in making significant enterprise changes. Note some of the less obvious considerations we encounter in our customer assessments:
Seeing all of this, maybe not everything would apply to you, but a lot of them could at the same time.
How CDW can help
CDW can help you navigate risk through difficult times and help identify decisions that need to be made for your organization. We can also assist in road mapping them for your benefit. We understand you may not yet be aware of everything that could be impacted by platform changes (ex. appliances from other vendors), so we would welcome an opportunity to give you a clear view of what is coming next to see if evaluating a new solution may offset the cost of your renewal.
