Broadcom has completed its acquisition of VMware, which will now operate as VMware by Broadcom. Broadcom’s structure is to run divisions dedicated to product groups, and the VMware business will operate as the following four Broadcom divisions:

  • VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
  • Tanzu (TNZ)
  • Software-Defined Edge (SDE)
  • Application Networking and Security (ANS)

As Broadcom is now refocusing VMware on these four core business units, Broadcom officially intends to divest itself of end-user computing (EUC), which includes products as Horizon, Workspace One and App Volumes, and Carbon Black which had just become an independent Broadcom business unit (see this article on The Register).

On Dec. 11, Krish Prasad (SVP and GM of the VCF division) announced significant changes coming to the VCF division portfolio:

  • Transition to Subscription Licenses: Offerings will be available solely as subscriptions or as term licenses following the end of sale of perpetual licenses and Support and Subscription (SnS) renewals.
  • Portfolio simplification: A reduction from more than 160 products, bundles and editions to two offers – VMware Cloud Foundation and the new VMware vSphere Foundation.

vSphere Standard and vSphere Essential Plus remain untouched by this changes.

The new licensing bundles are offered as “Disconnected”, i.e. no VMware Cloud connectivity. Optional “Connected” capability is planned for the future.

Offerings

Products included in VMware Cloud Foundation:

  • vSphere Enterprise Plus: 1 core with 16-core per CPU minimum
  • vCenter Standard: 1 instance
  • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid: 1 core
  • vSAN Enterprise: 1 TiB of vSAN per core
  • Aria Suite Enterprise: 1 core
  • NSX Networking for VCF: 1 core
  • HCX Enterprise: 1 core
  • AON Enterprise: 1 core
  • SDDC Manager: 1 core
  • Delect Support with SRE Essentials: Per Core

Products included in vSphere Foundation:

  • vSphere Enterprise Plus: 1 core with 16-core per CPU minimum
  • vCenter Server Standard: 1 instance
  • Tanzu Kubernetes Grid: 1 core
  • vSAN Enterprise: 100 GiB of vSAN per core (Not available as of writing this, coming soon)
  • Aria Suite Standard: 1 core
    • Aria Operations ADV: 1 core
    • Aria Operations for Logs

Products included in vSphere Standard:

  • vSphere Standard: 1 core with 16-core per CPU minimum
  • vCenter Standard: 1 instance

Products included in vSphere Essentials Plus (maximum of 3 hosts per license supported):

  • vSphere Essentials Plus: 96 cores with 16-core per CPU minimum
  • vCenter Essentials: 1 instance

Add-Ons

  • VMware vSAN: VCF and vSphere Foundation only
  • VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VCDR/RWR, SRM): VCF and vSphere Foundation only
  • VMware Advanced Load Balancer: VCF and vSphere Foundation only
  • VMware Firewall: VCF only
  • VMware Firewall with Advanced Threat Protection (ATP): VCF only
  • Tanzu Intelligence: VCF and vSphere Foundation only
  • Tanzu Mission Control: VCF and vSphere Foundation only
  • Tanzu Application Platform / Spring Runtime: VCF and vSphere Foundation only

Licensing FAQ

Here’s an incomplete list of frequently asked questions along with their answers. For more information connect with your VMware contact.

Q: Does VMware Cloud Foundation include all the features of the component products?
A: The NSX product only includes Networking. Security features, Load Balancing, Gateway Firewall and Distributed Firewall (Microsegmentation) services must be purchased separately.

Q: Which VCF version will the new offerings use?
A: The new offerings will be based on VCF 5.1.

Q: Is Avi LB integrated with VCF as part of 5.1 release?
A: No. Avi LB is planned to be integrated into VCF as part of a later release.

Q: Is Microsegmentation included in VCF?
A: No, only NSX Networking for VCF is included in VCF. The Microsegmentation feature can be purchased in the VMware Firewall as an add-on.

Q: Will existing NSX customers who rely on microsegmentation be able to transition to VCF without losing this functionality?
A: Yes, these customers will be able to purchase both VCF and the Firewall add-on.

Q: What capabilities are included in vSAN Add-on?
A: The vSAN Add-on includes vSAN Enterprise features, including vSAN Max. Pricing is per TiB.

Q: Is there an option for VCF for External Storage?
A: The VCF offer includes vSAN. Customers can optionally deploy external storage arrays as primary storage in a VCF environment, but must still license vSAN for all VCF domains.

Q: Can customers continue to use their perpetual licenses?
A: Yes, customers can continue to use perpetual licenses that they’ve purchased.

Q: Will customers be able to buy VCF components a la carte?
A: No. Going forward offerings are vSphere Foundation, VCF and the add ons shown above. Standalone offerings are being EOA’ed.