wikiVMware license model by Broadcom
Following the acquisition by Broadcom, the VMware product portfolio was converted on February 1, 2024. Here is an overview of the new license model as well as a summary of the most important changes for the use of VMWare in existing and new IT infrastructures.
Terminated products
VMware has already reduced its consisting vSphere product portfolio. Some products were discontinued completely.
As of now, the following products are not available anymore:
- vSphere Free Hypervisor
- VMware vSphere Essentials
- VMware vSphere Essentials Plus
- VMware Acceleration Kit Standard
- VMware Acceleration Kit Enterprise Plus
- vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Standard
- vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Advanced
- vSphere Remote Office Branch Office Enterprise
- VMware Desktop Hypervisor Pro (can be obtained free of charge[1])
The vCenter is no longer a separate product, but is included in all licenses. It can no longer be purchased separately.
In addition, the vSphere Academic licenses and terms and conditions have been discontinued.
New license model
All VMware products purchased after February 1, 2024, are based on a subscription model. This means that you only acquire the rights to use the licenses for a limited period of time and must purchase an extension to continue using them in full.
Expiring perpetual licenses
The so-called perpetual licenses, which are indefinitely valid, were discontinued and can no longer be purchased*. In addition, the following applies:
- A maintenance extension is not possible
- A migration of existing licenses to the new subscription model.
- Maturity adjustment of different contracts (Contracts) are currently not possible
| *Hint: A mixture of existing perpetual licenses with the new abo licenses is possible. Please note the compatibility of the licenses. |
vSAN
In the new licensing model, the vSAN product is an add-on to vSphere Foundation and Cloud Foundation. It is only available in the Enterprise Edition.
This will be accompanied by the following changes to licensing:
- vSAN is licensed per TiB. What counts here is theraw capacity, i.e., the total storage space before configuration of the storage solution.
- The possible terms are 1, 3 or 5 years.
As with all VMware products, vSAN licenses are only available on a subscription basis.
vSphere and Cloud Foundation
The most important innovations of the vSphere and vCloud product lines:
- All products are licensed after physical CPU nodes
- The minimum licensing is 16 nodes per CPU
- Each license now includes a vCenter.
- All licenses also include Essential Support over the acquired term
- The possible terms are 1, 3 or 5 years
Product overview
The following tables provide an overview of the updated products and its possible extensions.
Products
The new product catalogue includes four products. Each contains a virtualization unit, a vCenter, and a support package. Two products also include additional technologies:
| vSphere Standard (VVS)1) | vSphere Enterprise Plus | vSphere Foundation (VVF)2) | Cloud Foundation (VCF) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vCenter | ||||
| vCenter Essentials | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
| vCenter Standard | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Aria Suite | ||||
| Aria Suite Standard | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✘ |
| Aria Suite Enterprise | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Other technologies | ||||
| vSAN | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tanzu Kubernetes Grid | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| NSX Enterprise Plus | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| HCX Enterprise | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| AON Enterprise | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Support | ||||
| Essential Support | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
1)contains Storage vMotion.
2)VVF is the successor product of vSphere Enterprise & vSphere Enterprise Plus.[2]
Update November 2024:vSphere Enterprise Plus available again
Broadcom announced at VMware Explore US that it will once again include vSphere Enterprise Plus as a subscription model in its product portfolio.[3].
It is already added to the updated product line[2].
Enterprise Plus offers some differences in comparison to vSphere Standard in the areas of Simplified Operations, Built-In Security, Application Performance and Business Continuity.
In comparison to vSphere Foundation, you find the differences in the areas Key Attributes, Admin Services and Intelligent Operations Management, Kubernetes Services for Running VMs and Containers und Built-In Security.
Update April 2025: VMware vSphere Essentials Plus (VVEP) not available anymore
Broadcom has discontinued the sale of VVEP. Ongoing contracts remain, but an extension is not possible.
| vSphere Standard | vSphere Enterprise Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Simplified Operations | ||
| vSphere Configuration Profiles | ✘ | ✔ |
| Distributed Switch | ✘ | ✔ |
| Host Profiles and Auto Deploy | ✘ | ✔ |
| Consolidated Admin | ✘ | ✔ |
| Intelligent Alerts | ✘ | ✔ |
|
Built-In Security | ||
| vSphere Trust Authority | ✘ | ✔ |
| Virtual Machine Encryption | ✘ | ✔ |
| Support for Microsoft Virtualization-Based Security (VBS | ✘ | ✔ |
| Per-VM Enhanced vMotion Compatibility | ✘ | ✔ |
| Instant Clone | ✘ | ✔ |
| Application Performance | ||
| Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Storage DRS | ✘ | ✔ |
| Distributed Power Management (DPM) | ✘ | ✔ |
| I/O Controls (Network and Storage) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) Support | ✘ | ✔ |
| vSphere Persistent Memory | ✘ | ✔ |
| NVIDIA GRID Virtual GPU (vGPU) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Proactive High Availability (HA) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Accelerated Graphics for Virtual Machines | ✘ | ✔ |
| Vendor Device Group | ✘ | ✔ |
| Heterogeneous vGPU profiles on the same GPU | ✘ | ✔ |
| DRS automation for vGPU workloads | ✘ | ✔ |
| Business Continuity | ||
| Fault Tolerance | 2-vCPU | 8-vCPU |
In the following, you will find the comparison between vSphere Enterprise Plus and vSphere Foundation.
| vSphere Enterprise Plus | vSphere Foundation | |
|---|---|---|
| Key Attributes | ||
| VMware vSAN™ Enterprise (250 GiB per core) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Admin Services and Intelligent Operations Management | ||
| VCF Operations: Continuous Performance Optimization | ✘ | ✔ |
| VCF Operations: Efficient Cost and Capacity Management | ✘ | ✔ |
| VCF Operations: Intelligent Remediation | ✘ | ✔ |
| VCF Operations: Integrated Compliance | ✘ | ✔ |
| VCF Operations for Logs | ✘ | ✔ |
| VCF Operations Diagnostics (formerly Skyline) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Kubernetes Services for Running VMs and Containers | ||
| vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) | ✘ | ✔ |
| VKS Standard Packages | ✘ | ✔ |
| Storage Service | ✘ | ✔ |
| Network Services | ✘ | ✔ |
| Container Registry Service | ✘ | ✔ |
| VM Registry Service | ✘ | ✔ |
| Network Load Balancing | ✘ | ✔1) |
| VM Service | ✘ | ✔ |
| Workload Availability Zones | ✘ | ✔ |
| Customizable Base OS Images | ✘ | ✔ |
| Independent vSphere Kubernetes Service (VKS) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Local Consumption Interface (LCI) | ✘ | ✔ |
| Supervisor support on vSAN stretched clusters | ✘ | ✔ |
| Autoscaling for Kubernetes Clusters | ✘ | ✔ |
| Built-In Security | ||
| vCenter Configuration Drift Detection | ✘ | ✔ |
| Single Sign-On with VMware Identity Broker | ✘ | ✔ |
| Centralized License and Entitlement Management | ✘ | ✔ |
| Enhanced Certificate Management | ✘ | ✔ |
1)containsAVI Essentials and HAProxy
Extensions
All products expandable with additional products. You will find an overview in the following:
| Extension | vSphere Standard (VVS) | vSphere Foundation (VVF) | Cloud Foundation (VCF) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recovery | |||
| VMware Live Recovery 1) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Storage | |||
| vSAN (Enterprise) | ✘ | ✔2) | ✔3) |
| Container | |||
| Tanzu Mission Control | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tanzu Intelligence Services | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tanzu Applicaton Platform | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tanzu Spring Runtime | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Other technologies | |||
| VMware Avi Load Balancer | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| VMware vDefend Distributed Firewall | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| CSP Entitlement | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
1) VMware Live Recovery contains VMware Site Recovery Manager, VMware Cloud DR and VMware Ransomware Recovery.
2) 250 GiB/Kern is included in the license by default
3) 1 TiB/Kern is included in the license.
More information
- VMware vSphere Foundation 9.0 Feature Comparison
- The free vSphere Hypervisor is being discontinued
- Webinar about new products and licenses "VMware by Broadcom: Licensing"
References
- ↑ Download and license VMware Desktop Hypervisor (Fusion Pro and Workstation Pro) (broadcom.com, 20.11.2024)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 VMware vSphere® Product Line Comparison (vmware.com, 19.11.2024)
- ↑ Broadcom lenkt ein: VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus und Standard kehren zurück (heise.de, 19.11.2024)
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Author: Stefan Bohn Stefan Bohn has been employed at Thomas-Krenn.AG since 2020. Originally based in PreSales as a consultant for IT solutions, he moved to Product Management in 2022. There he dedicates himself to knowledge transfer and also drives the Thomas-Krenn Wiki.
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Translator: Alina Ranzinger Alina has been working at Thomas-Krenn.AG since 2024. After her training as multilingual business assistant, she got her job as assistant of the Product Management and is responsible for the translation of texts and for the organisation of the department.
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