VMWare - Options to Avoid or Minimise The Broadcom Price Increase

Since Broadcom purchased VMWare they have implemented significant price hikes on VMware’s existing products. This move is part of Broadcom’s strategy to enhance profit margins and reflect the perceived value of VMware’s offerings.

Our Customers Reaction

In recent months we have explored VMware alternatives?with different customers considering factors such as compatibility with existing infrastructure, cost, scalability, management features, and support options.

The alternative virtualization platforms or cloud-based solutions including Nutanix, Hyper-V, KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine, XenServer, Proxmox VE, Microsoft Azure / Amazon EC2 / Google Cloud Platform, Containerization with Docker and OpenStack

What became evident is there are Pros and Cons of moving to a different solution and as a first step many customers elected to see if they could optimize their VMware environment to reduce license costs.

VMWare Optimisation

We have worked with our partners and can now deploy (at no cost) an assessment tool that looks at all infrastructure, data and utilization, it has a dedicated VMware assessment capability that can identify specific actions that customers can take to reduce VMware licensing costs primarily through its optimization and visibility features, which enable organizations to make more informed decisions about resource allocation and utilization for both On Premises and Cloud services.

Assessment Tool

The assessment tool is setup to run for 30 days and is secure and non-intrusive and takes just a few minutes to set up, it requires a dedicated VM and 2 CPU’s. It will run on 8Gb Ram but is best run with 16Gb.

The major ways it can contribute to cost savings are:

1. Resource Optimization: The tool monitors the performance and usage metrics of all environments (including a dedicated VMware component) including virtual machines (VMs), hosts, and datastores. By analysing these metrics, organizations can identify underutilized VMs or over-provisioned resources. This insight allows them to right-size VMs and consolidate workloads more effectively, potentially reducing the number of VMware licenses needed.
2. Capacity Planning: The tool provides visibility into capacity trends and forecasts based on historical data. Organizations can use this information to plan capacity more accurately, avoiding over-provisioning and the associated costs of unnecessary VMware licenses. It helps in predicting future resource needs and optimizing VM deployments accordingly.
3. Performance Monitoring: Continuously monitors VM performance metrics such as CPU usage, memory utilization, and storage performance. By ensuring optimal VM performance, organizations can avoid performance bottlenecks that might otherwise necessitate adding more VMware licenses to meet performance requirements.
4. Cost Allocation and Chargeback: For environments where chargeback mechanisms are implemented the tool can provide detailed insights into resource consumption by individual VMs or departments. This visibility helps organizations allocate VMware licensing costs more accurately based on actual usage, promoting cost accountability and optimization.
5. Automation and Efficiency: Integration with VMware environments allow for automated data collection and reporting. This automation reduces manual effort in gathering performance data and allows IT teams to focus more on strategic initiatives, such as optimizing VMware deployments to reduce licensing costs.
6. Cloud Migration and Hybrid Environments: For organizations transitioning workloads to the cloud or operating in hybrid environments the tool offers visibility across both on-premises VMware environments and cloud platforms. This holistic view helps in making informed decisions about workload placement and optimizing licensing costs across different deployment models.

Summary

After gathering data on the entire environment then a recommendation will be provided which details concrete recommendations to help reduce VMware licensing costs by providing visibility, optimization, and automation capabilities that enable organizations to right-size their VMware environments, improve resource utilization, and effectively manage performance to avoid unnecessary license expenditures.

If you are not a VMware user the tool will still provide an assessment and report on your existing On premises and/or Cloud infrastructure

?At best it will identify opportunities for performance improvement and cost reduction and at worst it will give you a solid health check on your infrastructure.

?If you would like to take part in this free assessment, please contact me and I can arrange either a discussion or provide the assessment installation details for you.

?Best Regards