VMware end of availability of perpetual licensing and Software as a Service (SaaS) services

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As announced in December 2023, VMware by Broadcom streamlined and simplified its portfolio and transitioned from perpetual licensing to a subscription model. VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation, available as subscription software only, are now the two new offers. They also offer optional advanced add-ons which can be used with these solutions.

 

 

How does the VMware portfolio simplification look like?

Many VMware software solutions will only be offered as part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). They will not be available for purchase as standalone point solutions.

Changes VMware has brought to its portfolio:

  • VMware Cloud Foundation is VMware’s new solution for customers looking to capture the value of full stack infrastructure with a platform that offers vSpherevSAN and NSX with the full Aria management and orchestration suite with new services included.
  • VMware vSphere Foundation is VMware’s solution for data center optimization in traditional vSphere environments. It includes Tanzu Kubernetes Grid in addition to Aria Operations and Aria Operations for Logs as part of its standard suite of features. Customers with lighter requirements such as basic hardware consolidation or virtualization on a very small number of servers can still purchase subscriptions to vSphere Standard and vSphere Essentials Plus Kit.
  • VMware add-on services are available for VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation to address additional storage, security, disaster recovery, Generative AI and other use cases.

 

Does VMware support “Bring Your Own License” capability?

VMware by Broadcom plans to offer “Bring Your Own License” capability that will allow customers to purchase subscriptions of VMware Cloud Foundation from Broadcom and flexibly deploy those subscriptions to VMware validated hybrid cloud endpoints, as well as their own on-prem data centers.

 

Which VMware solutions are now at End of Availability (EOA) as standalone offers?

The products listed in the table below are now at End of Availability (EOA) as standalone offers. Some offerings may still be available for consumption as part of VMware Cloud Foundation or VMware vSphere Foundation offers, which have been noted.

As detailed in this blog, VMware is also announcing EoA of the Aria SaaS services, but will continue to support those customers currently using Aria SaaS services until the end of their subscription term.  At the end of the subscription term, customers will need to transition to either VCF or VVF.  Aria SaaS Services are in maintenance mode, meaning no new features will be published, although security and critical updates will be provided during the active subscription period.

This announcement encompasses all licensing options, including Perpetual, Support & Subscription (SnS), SaaS/hosted and other subscription types. It also covers every edition, suite, and pricing metric for each product including affected academic SKUs. Any exception to this coverage will be specified separately.

 

Products no longer available as standalone (all editions and pricing metrics) Replacement Product Included in VCF/VVF/Add-on? Which Product or Add-On? 
(Yes/No)
VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus Yes VCF, VVF
VMware vSphere+ No
VMware vSphere Enterprise No
VMware vSphere Standard (excluding subscription) Yes Replaced with new vSphere Standard
VMware vSphere ROBO No
VMware vSphere Scale Out No
VMware vSphere Desktop No
VMware vSphere Acceleration Kits No
VMware vSphere Essentials Kit No
VMware vSphere Essentials Plus (excluding new subscription offering) Yes Replaced with vSphere Essentials Plus Kit
VMware vSphere Starter/Foundation No
VMware vSphere with Operations Management No
VMware vSphere Basic No
VMware vSphere Advanced No
VMware vSphere Storage Appliance No
VMware vSphere Hypervisor (free edition) No
VMware Cloud Foundation/VCF+/VCF-S (excluding new VCF subscription offering) No  Replaced with VMware Cloud Foundation (new)
VMware Cloud Foundation for VDI No
VMware Cloud Foundation for ROBO No
VMware SDDC Manager Yes VCF
VMware vCenter Standard Yes VCF, VVF and vSphere STD
VMware vCenter Foundation No
VMware vSAN Yes VCF, VVF, vSAN add-on
VMware vSAN ROBO No
VMware vSAN Desktop No
VMware vSAN+ No
VMware HCI Kit No
VMware Site Recovery Manager Yes SRM Add-On Service
VMware Cloud Editions/Cloud Packs No Replaced with VCF, VVF
VMware vCloud Suite No Replaced with VCF, VVF
VMware Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite) Yes VCF, VVF
VMware Aria Universal Suite (formerly vRealize Cloud Universal) No
VMware Aria Suite Term Yes VCF, VVF
VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight) Yes VCF
VMWare Aria Operations for Networks Universal (formerly vRealize Network Insight Universal) No
VMware vRealize Network Insight ROBO No
VMWare Aria Operations for Logs (formerly vRealize Log Insight) Yes VVF, VCF
VMware vRealize Operations 8 Application Monitoring Add-On No
VMware Aria Operations Yes VVF, VCF
VMware Aria Automation Yes VCF
VMware Aria Suite Cloud for US Public Sector No
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Hosts add-on (formerly SaltStack SecOps) Yes Tanzu Guardrails Add-On
VMware vRealize Automation SaltStack SecOps add-on Yes Tanzu Guardrails Add-On
VMware Aria Operations for Integrations (formerly vRealize True Visibility Suite) Yes VCF, VVF
VMware Cloud Director Yes VCF (CSP only)
VMware Cloud Director Service No
VMware NSX Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX for Desktop Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX ROBO Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX Distributed Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall
VMware NSX Gateway Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall
VMware NSX Threat Prevention to Distributed Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX Threat Prevention to Gateway Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention to Distributed Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention to Gateway Firewall Yes VCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware Advanced Load Balancer Yes VMware Avi Load Balancer Add-On (also standalone)
VMware Container Networking Enterprise with Antrea Yes VCF and VMware Firewall
VMware HCX Yes VCF
VMware HCX+ No

What are the next steps?

If you are an existing customer and purchased the above End of Availability products and are not up for renewal there is no immediate action required at this time. VMware will continue to offer active support through the duration of your support contract.

In the future, at the time of renewal, please reach out to us to align your go forward requirements to VMware’s updated portfolio of offerings.

 

More information

You can find the official VMware announcement here: https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud-foundation/2024/01/22/vmware-end-of-availability-of-perpetual-licensing-and-saas-services/.

For our vendor page of VMware, please visit: https://www.schneider.im/software/vmware/.

Please contact us for expert services on your specific VMware requirements and to request a quote today.

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