The End of Perpetual Licenses

Following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, a significant change impacting the perpetual license landscape has occurred.

As part of the transition to a subscription-based model, Broadcom has announced the end of perpetual license sales, including renewals of support and subscriptions for existing perpetual offerings. This decision marks a critical turning point for organizations currently utilizing VMware solutions and requires careful consideration of its implications.

In this article, we provide a breakdown of the consequences this decision entails for various customer groups.

1. Existing Subscription Customers

Customers already on subscription plans will be affected by the discontinuation of perpetual license sales in the following ways:

• Renewal Cost Increase: Renewing existing subscription plans will likely involve increased costs as Broadcom adjusts pricing to align with the new subscription-based model. For the past few months, we have heard customers facing increases anywhere between 200% and 800%.
• Limited Flexibility: Customers will no longer have the option to purchase perpetual licenses and are confined to the recurring subscription model.

2. Perpetual License Customers

For customers currently using perpetual licenses, the implications are more significant:

• Essential Support Discontinuation: Broadcom will no longer offer support contracts for perpetual licenses. This means no security updates (except for highest-severity CVEs), bug fixes, or technical assistance, potentially exposing organizations to vulnerabilities and security risks.

• Effective License Obsolescence: Without ongoing support, perpetual licenses effectively become obsolete, forcing organizations to migrate to a subscription-based model to maintain access to critical security updates and technical support.

3. Security Concerns

The discontinuation of support for perpetual licenses raises significant security concerns. VMware solutions, particularly vSphere, have been targeted in major ransomware attacks in recent years.

Operating on unsupported versions without security updates exposes organizations to vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors and have proven to lead to the takeover of entire environments.

Looking Ahead

Given the end of perpetual license sales, organizations must carefully consider their migration strategies. While migrating to a subscription model might seem inevitable when facing a renewal on a very short timeframe, exploring cost-optimization opportunities and evaluating alternative virtualization solutions is crucial.

As a Managed Service Provider specializing in infrastructure support and deployment, we at Forward Systems can assist you in navigating these complexities. Our team possesses extensive expertise in multiple virtualization environments and can help you assess your current infrastructure to identify potential cost-saving opportunities and develop a tailored migration plan that aligns with your budget and technical requirements.

Costly renewals are not a fatality!

Forward Systems is partner with Vates and we deliver open solutions that offer full-feature parity with your existing deployment, 24x7x1 SLAs, at a fair cost and without vendor lock-ins. We have a track record of successfully migrating environments on timeframes as short as a month.

Contact our team today to discuss the best path forward for your organization: [email protected]