virtualization
Broadcom’s VCF-or-nothing licenses are coming to Azure
Microsoft has signalled it will end one of the last remaining ways to acquire VMware products outside of a big bundle.Redmond’s main offer for Virtzillains is the Azure VMware Solution (AVS), a cloudy affair that includes vCenter, vSAN, vSphere, and NSX and licenses for them all – but not the Software-Defined Datacenter Manager tool that Broadcom uses to package its wares into a centrally-manageable hybrid cloud in its flagship Cloud Foundation (VCF) suite.Since acquiring VMware, Broadcom has gone all-in on VCF and no longer sells a standalone low-end server virtualization product. The Register understands the VMware channel and sales team almost never sell licenses for vSphere Foundation, a bundle that’s useful on the edge or branch office, unless it’s part of a bigger deal that includes VCF.
Services like AVS therefore represent an alternative for orgs that want to keep using VMware, but don’t want to jump to VCF.
Broadcom isn’t keen on licensing anything other than the entire VCF bundle and made that plain with licensing changes that mean its hyperscale partners are not allowed to sell VMware licenses. The code-and-chips shop therefore requires customers to bring their own VCF licenses to any cloudy VMware service.
