The IT and cybersecurity community is buzzing about Broadcom’s $69 billion purchase of VMware. And with Broadcom now selling off parts of the business, laying off employees and shaking up existing licensing terms – this means costly consequences for VMware customers. Notably, Broadcom has terminated its partner agreements with VMware service providers and resellers, leaving smaller partners in the lurch to ask – what now?

At TREBRON, we take pride in staying up-to-date with the latest cybersecurity news and changes, and we are well aware of how these situations can adversely affect our customers. We are here to help you. Keep reading to learn more about the latest actions by Broadcom and see how our team can help VMware users who may be considering a change in their virtualization software provider.

Is it Time to Plan Your VMware Exit Strategy?

With organizations nationwide relying on VMware solutions, many industry analysts are advising customers to think ahead about what this will mean for the future of their organizations. From changing the current model to SaaS, a lack of support, increasing pricing and focusing more on enterprise to cutting back on the products offered – while bundling others to force customers to pay for all of them – many customers are concerned about the changes that may be on the horizon. Based on these changes, some customers might need to take action in the short-term, and others sometime down the road. Either way, now is the right time to plan your exit strategy.

However, pulling the plug may be easier said than done, especially for customers with VMware technology threaded throughout their IT infrastructure. In fact, VMware is a complete ecosystem that typically encompasses disaster recovery, backup, storage, management and server virtualization, which is why we urge customers to think clearly and rationally before making any quick decisions. If you would like to speak with us about your options and learn how TREBRON can help your organization moving forward, we can help!

What Can You Do Now to Prepare?

If your organization is already seeing changes, potentially due to the layoffs that have already happened or a change in your account coverage as a result, it’s important to start thinking ahead. There is a great deal of uncertainty in the industry as a result of the merger, and the last thing organizations need is to twiddle their thumbs while they wait for something major to affect their organizations.

We encourage VMware users to explore other options well before their current support agreement ends, with a focus on matching their existing requirements to a hybrid of SaaS, to reduce the number of internal hosted services, and self-hosting on-site or at a reputable datacenter, or other virtualization options. See some alternatives below. Some customers may disengage from VMware for certain uses and applications while having some form of VMware operating to create a heterogeneous infrastructure. At TREBRON, we offer multiple options for VMware customers who wish to seek an alternative for their existing technology solutions, and we’re happy to discuss these with organizations seeking an offramp.

Considering a VMware Alternative? 

At TREBRON, our network engineers have multiple options prepared to help your organization migrate away from VMware to a platform that will be stable and supported for the long term. Contact us today to discuss these options and determine how TREBRON can help. 

• Microsoft Hyper-V
  This solution is best for smaller, Microsoft-focused organizations due to the fact that there is no additional licensing or OS knowledge required.  However, it does require shared storage on a SAN to allow failover clustering or manual intervention to move between hosts if no shared storage is available. This solution is best for 2-4 servers for most deployments, with larger deployments possible, but that can make this solution harder to manage. Note that with a Microsoft Hyper-V solution, file backup requires additional software and hardware. Contact us today to discuss if Microsoft Hyper-V is a good VMware replacement for your organization.

• Verge.IO
  This non-hardware-specific hyperconverged infrastructure is very disk-efficient and scales easily for any number of servers. It includes a free migration path off of VMware as part of the software suite, and while no SAN is needed, proper SSDs are required for key nodes. Backups can be handled by backup nodes that are either self-hosted or hosted with a provider, or hosted externally with third-party tools. Note that two-node clusters do not require any dedicated networking. Contact us today to discuss if Verge.IO is a good VMware replacement for your organization.
  
• Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI):
  Two traditional HCI vendors include Nutanix and Scale Computing. With this solution, specific server hardware with compute, networking and internal storage is required, replacing external SAN storage. HCI fits best when all three tiers of an existing three-tier structure – servers, SAN switches and external storage – are ready to be refreshed. Infrastructure software updates are simple and pre-tested. Contact us today to discuss if a Hyperconverged Infrastructure is a good VMware replacement for your organization.
  
• Proxmox
  This solution scales easily to any number of nodes and includes an established migration path from VMware and many other hypervisors using free open-source tools, with the only cost being the time to perform the migration. It is most flexible for many storage options offered at both the node and cluster levels, and backup is integrated using a Proxmox backup server to local and cloud targets. Note that licensing is also extremely affordable. Contact us today to discuss if Proxmox is a good VMware replacement for your organization. 

Contact Us Today to Learn More

At TREBRON, our engineers and sales team are prepared to help you solve the current issues many organizations are facing with the recent buyout. If you would like to learn more, talk to our engineers and bounce around ideas about a plan for your organization going forward, contact us today. We are here to help, and our team is standing by to recommend the best solution for your organization.