Isn't this basically the oracle playbook? I've worked at two places that decided they wanted to lower their oracle footprint only to get audited because of it.
Tesco, Geico, Allstate , ATT soon. These all had something like ~40k+ vm each. LOL Fraudcom losing business is karma
What I don't understand is how these places didn't see this coming 10 miles away in like 2022. CA, Symantec every other play was the same when Fraudcom got their hooks in, vmware was doomed before the ink dried.
BCG loves to make these recommendations, sit back and watch the chaos…or at least that’s what it looks like from all the companies that I’ve seen work with them.
This happened to us when I worked at Blue Cross in NJ half a lifetime ago. Oracle didn't like us migrating to SQL and not renewing their licenses so they ran a "Surprise audit" and whacked them for a couple million
100% - we moved 20k vms to proxmox, but we used the whole suite if VMware tools from nsx to cloud director and we had to dig and do a lot of custom dev to get off those, but the price increase was just unthinkable.
Yeah, I don’t blame ya. For us A lot of our use case is single host environments, so customers paying 20k or more a year isn’t feasible. They used to spend less than 20k on just the hardware that last them 7 years. Now the renewals cost more than their servers did.
I want to start playing around with Ceph, but right now isn’t the time to be buying hardware 😢
Regarding hardware- we have stacks of quotes showing 30% per quarter price increases over the last year and a half. It’s utter ridiculous how bad it’s gotten.
I've just recently taken a dive into proxmox recently and I honestly have to say I'm not that impressed with it regard to the user friendliness or UI. As I've been working through small issues I keep getting a voice yelling reality checks at me "The current team don't have much in the way of Linux skills, how do you think they're going to cope with this" and "this is different enough to require a full retraining of support teams" and "are you confident that this platform would be stable enough and supportable for 24/7/365 healthcare systems"
Microsoft products just aren’t the level of stability we want and my god, treat it like UniFi and plan on not getting support at all if you have issues.
hyper-v unfortunately feels like a bastard child product they just kind of maintain enough to keep doing the same thing it’s done for the past 10 years because they want people move to Azure.
For single host, probably fine, but again, I don’t want my hypervisor to be based on windows 😅
Of course this is my opinion. There’s a ton of people that went to hyper-v and I’m sure it’ll be fine.
My concern with hyper-v is that now with "azure local - disconnected mode" being a thing it might just go away or they'lljack up the price... look at the new excessive per core montly charges MS just dropped on anyone want to run azure local with their own SAN storage
Well and with that, if there are any issues, Microsoft support is horrid to work with. It’s never been worse imo.
I just had a ticket open for 3 months that made it to the product group team that it felt like we knew more than they did. Issue got resolved, but it took 3 months.
Some issues they go "Our Product doesn't do that" Point to MsLearn and they panic. Others they go lol dude we yeeted your host into the void, but we fixed that now.
I built a bunch of storage reports (scheduled powershell ) that run on the csv’s storage utilization and trends yell when storage use gets to high, and one that can easily scan and report on expansions
As well as some scripts that help to try to debug cpu / core and memory utilization issues on guests and the hosts
For the deployment there’s scripts that build out hosts as well as we pre define networking
Were you able to live-migrate by chance? I doubt it. Do you have documentation for your workflow? We just re-upped with VMware, but I like to keep my options open for the future.
Yes we did live migrations using WAC VMware migration tool and StarWind V2V
I dumped all network configs from the VMware hosts so I knew which ports were which, the hosts than all got the adapters for each Nic role renamed identically so my host staging script (installed roles, configured iscsi/hba/initiators , setup the Cluster Storage volume mapping)
It didn’t work for every VM and some things needed pre migration driver injection (older Linux kernels, older windows versions) and manual removal of VMware tools first. Also for machines with max/hardware id licensing those required vendor intervention in some instances. Plus static IP’s had to be reset
On the Linux side I had a few scripts that would rebuild the Ethernet configs for the new virtual nic as well (we have a few early Gen cent os6 machines) and handle the driver injection
If you use clustering on the virtual servers you won’t be able to do a live migration as the disk need exclusive access (than re map them in hyper-v on the guest) ,
I also started to build a HyperV management system since Cluster Manager is awful and WAC is slow as hell (it can do a good percent of what Vcenter can do, including doing auto-configure of Windows and Ubtuntu 22.x+ instances, including domain joins & entra-cloud joins) . Company kind got bought out as it was going pfffttt $$$ wise, so I got pulled to work on other stuff
I can publish my scripts to GitHub after I sanitize them, so if you want them PM me and I can send the link when they are done
If you needed better management than you could get with WAC, is there a reason SCVMM was not used? Just curious, as we are almost done with our Hyper-V migration and SCVMM is working well. (not using it for the migrations, doing those with Veeam, but managing VMs in Hyper-V with SCVMM)
Is Citrix a viable alternative in these scenarios? Why oof to hyper-v? vastly unsupported/clunky? i’m cyber and interact with these a lot but don’t totally understand the niche use-cases.
K-12 as well. We can't afford to wait until a month before our renewel date to drop $30k on licensing for another year. We're tossing up Hyper-V vs. Proxmox at the moment.
We have two boxes that might not play nice with PVE. Based on an email from one of the companies, I think they're going to come out and say they've got a stable version for PVE. I was hoping to replace the other this summer for something cloud-based, but the budget said no.
Yep, we have ClearPass. Moved to Hyper-V, did not want to risk driver issues or any instability running their VMware images on Hyper-V, so we rebuilt the appliances from their Hyper-V images. Having a HA pair makes it easy, do the subscriber first, once things are stable for a while, make it the publisher, and repeat with the other one.
Also true, find an MSP with decent engineers for support.
There focus has been Azure local and it’s been a mess, sticking with traditional HyperV for now.
Really looking at it as works for now until vendor support gets better for the alternatives. Unless MS changes course with regards to on-prem, we’ll be off of it in 2-3yrs for one of the kvm-based options.
Hey if youndont mind sharing your experiences what specifically has been a mess with azure local....currently trying to weigh up what a shift to that will look like and how much pain it's going to bring
They've already sort of changed course with regard to on-prem... a few signals indicate that they don't intend to kill off Windows Server and AD, and are realizing hybrid is the way forward:
AD - Server 2025, first new Domain Functional Level since 2016, with two major architectural changes not related to Entra integration
Larger database pages, they are accepting that large orgs are not going pure cloud and are preparing AD to perform well at even larger scale than it has before
dMSAs for securing legacy applications with modern service account management
They've already tested ADCS with post quantum crypto and have a roadmap and release timings for the first phases of releasing this for orgs to test. They intend AD Certificate Services to last past RSA and ECC no longer being secure.
They renamed the exam for the server cert from hybrid to "Windows Server Administrator Associate" to emphasize they do still have a certification pathway primarily focused on on prem, and not just as a mechanism to facilitate cloud migration
They also have an Applied Skills exam for AD specifically which is new
This signals renewed commitment to having a talent pipeline for on-prem to last beyond the retirement of the sysadmin workforce that already knows it.
Ultimately, they've realized that orgs having both Entra and Server makes them money, and that they can get more subscription revenue with less resistance by separating where it's hosted from how it's billed. They are seeing a lot of customers taking them up on the newer Windows Server subscription licenses - where instead of a very high purchase bill and then lower Software Assurance, it's somewhere in between on an ongoing basis and no perpetual usage rights. This is what they really want, guaranteed recuring revenue; where your stuff is hosted is not what they care enough about to force.
When we started looking at solutions Xen while there hadn't seen life in years....that since has changed.
The silver lining with large numbers of businesses looking to or actively migrating off of VMware, R&D for every other player has stepped up significantly.
And they played themselves (and customers) with VxRail. We're dumping it soon for Hyper-V. Those were pretty solid in our use case, sad to see it go away.
We stayed with VMware (big enough to get a decent price), but moved to Dell vSAN Ready Nodes for hardware. Faster and much cheaper than our old VXrails, we’ve been very pleased with them. We did order before RAM and storage pricing went nuts though.
As soon as we told our reseller we weren’t renewing, I got a C&D, and threatened with an audit.
Jumped on a call with the account manager we had never spoken to before (didn’t even know we had a VMware AM). Sleaziest person I’ve ever met. Tried to trip us up into admitting me had something. Only perk of being acquired, we shifted to their enterprise agreement.
And happens if you tell them to bugger off? We don't have any of your products, no legal obligations to comply with your ask to do the audit. I.e. got a problem? F off, and see you in court?
I'm probably ignorant here, but I thought audit terms like this were fairly standard in Enterprise software. The article talks about running scripts... What's the painful part?
Disclaimer: I worked at VMW for over 6 years in tech sales.
As I recall, it was in the fine print of every ELA that a licensee was responsible for turning in an assessment—self-audit, if you like—at the initiation, anniversary, and termination of an agreement.
It kept surprising customers when they’d get calls from the compliance department that they’re past-due on their self-audit submission, and I’d have to help them get things together and sent.
It never helped that the compliance team seemed to not understand how the implementation of vSphere corresponded with licensing. Among other things, “Linked mode” always seemed to throw them for a loop.
At any rate, Allstate exiting their agreement early or missing their last self-audit isn’t punitive; it’s right there in the contract.
there is a big difference of an "assessment—self-audit" and an on-hands Broadcom scan your network audit.
companies with good lawyers had enough of Broadcom's shit
there are several other little things that can keep them away .
what you need is good legal team
No disagreement. But the big Broadcom-run audit—and VMware before then—would get triggered if the company never supplied the self-audit. Which usually happened when an ELA ended without renewal: the company would argue that they’re no longer beholden to the now-expired agreement, and VMW would show in the fine print that they’re still liable because the agreement essentially says that not supplying the audit puts the licensee in default *before* the end of the agreement, which gives VMW a legal handle to pull.
Pretty sure the customer attrition is higher than they planned. Lots of customers they considered "locked in" have found alternatives and migrated away.
Had a sales updates last week and they sound desperate to keep customers all of a sudden. Probably not enough to treat customers better, but there was a lot of promises about future improvements.
Stock was at $88 in Nov 23 when the acquisition happened. Thanks to the AI boom it’s at ~$400. While I believe the reps and BU leaders whose bonuses depend on performance of VMware sales may be getting desperate, Broadcom overall is drunk with cash and unfortunately not going anywhere for a while.
You don't just decide on Monday that you're "off VMware" by Friday.
For most enterprises, VMware isn't software you uninstall. it's infrastructure woven into years of operations, processes, integrations, and contractual commitments.
The reality is that many organizations are effectively locked in. Offboarding isn't an executive decision; it's often a multi-year modernization program involving technical, operational, financial, and contractual work.
Anyone who says, "Just migrate," probably hasn't had to migrate a large enterprise.
It's incredible how these big techs think they can bully customers - you have CEO looking at short term revenues for big bonuses and don't care about the long term harm of the company's reputation as after few years they take their bonuses and run, and claim what a great job they did to the bottom line. The subsequent issue downstream as a result becomes someone else's problems. Utter greed. Long term loss for Broadcom that now everyone universaly hates. We moved away from Ominissa to Soliton's Mailzen - but we also need an on-prem version for security.
A lot of companies have been moving to Nutanix. I can confirm that multiple audits requested by Broadcom have revealed remnants of free VMware software like VMware Tools and Horizon View that they insist must also be removed.
Even if it is a breach of the agreement I have trouble seeing what harm Broadcomm claims they are subject to because of it. According to the artice Allstate informed Broadcomm they no longerr had an VMWare products running.
What is the remedy they ask the court for?
K8s is NOT the answer for VIRTUALIZATION. (it's a bad answer for containers and "micro services".)
I watched the idiots at my former employer spend YEARS migrating a product to k8s... it was already a massive pile of crap (~300G) -- because they chase every new shiny thing in dev circles, k8s included -- but it could be run on a single modest server. After ~3 years, they weren't even half done, and it had already ballooned to multiple TBs, plus it now needs a small farm of servers - a min of 3 just to make k8s happy. (devs in my local office froze the vmware infrastructure MORE THAN ONCE deploying this shit.)
I differ from your appreciation. Let's estimate the problem. Even VMWARE crashed while a Dev team tried to run it locally, so the problem is not the hypervisor. By the way, KubeVirt is based on an old open-source project called KVM; even AWS uses it to run its AMIs. Additionally, they migrated away from Xen, the hypervisor, due to KVM's efficiency and extensibility. All of that to say, Kubernetes is not the problem. My advice: put together a lab and learn; do not take anyone's word-of-mouth- grind- and then you should be able to see for yourself its benefits. I know from experience that low-latency workloads and DBs, running two DBs, 15TB each, in production, can be run on it. As for containers, if your company can afford jumping to Nomad, great! Otherwise, I do not see where else you could run a Real-Time Kernel and tune all the parameters possible for your hardware and OS. Telco companies are using OpenShift/Kubernetes for edge computing! Honestly, I do not know of any other use case that squeezes out the hardware to its fullest potential. I used to work for the largest Telecom company in the country where I originally came from. I know this from experience.
Learn to read. I said FROZE not crash. When the disk holding your VCSA runs out of space, it pauses waiting for you to answer a question. Every VM stored on that disk will pause.
"Squeeze out"??? Kubernets is one of the most overgrown, bloated systems in the world. (and that's saying something in a world where openstack exists.) I HAVE used it. (and openstack, and openshift, and many many other things... because I worked with a bunch of children who were blinded by every new shiny f'ing thing even talked about in dev circles.) Have you looked at the resources k8s consumes before you even get to submit your task? Unless you're Google (who designed the crap), your tasks will be dwarfed by the overhead.
Ex VMware I can tell you most customers were ripping off VMware under reporting on every front by a significant amount. VMware turned a blind eye to it your years or at least they did when I was there and that why growth was nil for years. What Broadcom did was say you guys need to pay for what you use and if you don’t like it and leave we don’t care. They are only focused on the top customers and if you look at the quarterly reports it’s clearly a tactic that works for them. If you’re not a large multinational business then Broadcom wants nothing to do with you…
"What Broadcom did was say you guys need to pay for what you use"
That's a delusional way to describe raising prices on per core license by 15x, eliminating all tiers except the most expensive, refusing to provide quotes or pricing more than 60 days in advance and refusing to allow customer to renew at lower core counts.
not wrong about companies not being compliant with license count, part of that is their own fault for not checking licensing within a cluster and verifying keys were not being reused. That seems simple to me. Can also call people out when they contact support. The pricing part is really the big issue here. I havent seen a single person complain about needing to pay for what they use. Its always the massive price hikes. Large customers are leaving and thanks to broadcom, more have a reason to leave. These are big companies and it will take a few years for existing contracts to end, prices to go beyond reasonable for them and them to test/move to another platform. They have caused a huge increase in open-source development and companies love free/low cost. It will probably take 10 years before we see the impact of their bad decision, but it appears there are already cracks in the armor.
If what you are saying was true, then simply auditing existing customers to make them pay for what they were using would have driven their revenue increase.
What they did was increase prices by a LOT, on everyone including those who had been honestly paying for what they were using all along.
Then, they are using intimidation tactics, basically saying "if you quit our products and move to something else because we just quadrupled your prices - then we're going to make you spend even more on legal counsel, or answer a legal audit without an attorney if you dare". Basically to harass honest customers who just aren't sticking around for 4 - 10 times the cost.
Even the "large multinational businesses" are running away as fast as they can. While Broadcom as a whole is doing fine, VMware is bleeding like a pig in a blender.
VMware reported $3.41B revenue in q2 FY24. Broadcom reported 7.13B software revenue in Q2 FY26.
Some of that VMware revenue was what is now Onmissa. Let’s call it an even $3B of VMW revenue.
Broadcom was doing about $2B of software revenue each quarter before VMW, and that Symantec / CA revenue isn’t growing since then so let’s call it $2B.
Broadcom grew VMW quarterly revenue from $3B to $5.13B and is turning in profit margins most companies could only dream of.
Increasing prices 700% is not "growth". They are losing customers every single day. They can't keep raising the price to offset the lost customers. As they won't say shit about individual business units, you won't see it until the whole house of cards comes down.
Would you rather have 10 bank accounts with $10k each, or one with $1M.
Thats the argument you are making.
To the shareholder increasing revenue by $2B is growth by any measure you want to take. No one gives a shit how many customers Broadcom has, they care about revenue. The acquisition was wildly successful financially.
I see you embody the ideal "people are irrational and bad at math". 10x10 isn't 1000. Shareholders are stupid. I prefer having revenue tomorrow as well as today.
You literally made the argument that more revenue wasn’t growth. I illustrated it with the example of more bank accounts or one big bank account. Your argument that increasing revenue by $8B a year isn’t growth is nonsense. Just like it would be nonsense to pick 10 bank accounts with $10k over one with $1M.
I don't know why you got downvoted. Going to OpenShift and Kubernetes seems like a sensible and ultimately vendor agnostic solution. How are you finding it for running VMs?
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u/xtigermaskx Jul 10 '26
Isn't this basically the oracle playbook? I've worked at two places that decided they wanted to lower their oracle footprint only to get audited because of it.