Acquisitions inevitably bring change. And Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware – a leading global provider of on-premises virtualisation solutions, has certainly shaken things up.
Since acquiring VMware, Broadcom has restructured its business, spinning off units like Carbon Black (security) and Horizon (desktop virtualisation). It has shifted the remaining products from perpetual to subscription-only models and reduced the total number of licensable products by bundling them.
While this bundling simplifies procurement, it has led to higher costs if the included products aren’t all relevant to your needs. The shift to subscription licensing has resulted in noticeable increases in renewal prices for some – with some businesses experiencing hikes of 100%, 300%, or even 500%.
These price uplifts are presenting an interesting opportunity with many reconsidering their infrastructure strategies and assessing competing technologies. Instead of continuing with VMware on-premises, they’re exploring alternatives, such as switching to different hypervisors (e.g., Azure Stack HCI, Nutanix) or migrating to the cloud.
If, like many, you’re considering other options, you have no doubt already considered one, or all of the below:
Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution (AVS) offers some elegant answers to these considerations, addressing interoperability, flexibility, ease of integration and, perhaps surprisingly, cost.
AVS offers a comprehensive, hosted VMware service on dedicated Azure infrastructure. Jointly engineered by VMware and Microsoft, AVS is built and managed by Microsoft – recently named a Leader in 2024 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Strategic Cloud Platform Services (SCPS) – with flexible pricing models that make it an attractive alternative to traditional on-premises setups.
Let’s explore AVS in more detail, starting with its portfolio of Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) clusters:
AVS is deployed in clusters with a minimum of three hosts, including both storage and networking. It provides a quick, seamless path to the cloud for businesses running multiple VMware virtual machines. Use cases range from datacentre expansion, reduction, or retirement to disaster recovery, business continuity, and application modernisation. Its flexible disaster recovery options also support seamless integration from on-premises to AVS, between AVS clusters, or directly to Azure services.
AVS is particularly appealing to businesses already considering a cloud journey but not yet ready to modernise their entire application stack. After all, re-factoring or modernising applications during migration can be time-consuming and costly.
By comparison, AVS offers a ‘migrate to modernise’ approach, enabling businesses to migrate first, realise immediate cost savings that can be diverted to fund their application modernisation, and then gradually modernise. Once on Azure, companies can tap into a range of native services to accelerate application development.
AVS can integrate with your on-premises vSphere environment. But perhaps the biggest advantage of AVS is its seamless integration within the Azure ecosystem. Businesses can continue running their virtual machines on VMware while gradually modernising applications on Azure, all within a connected environment. By incorporating Azure services for security, backup, and monitoring, AVS effectively streamlines operations and reduces the need for on-premises servers, storage, and hardware. Given these services often make up a large share of compute resources, this approach can significantly lower capacity requirements. With less IT overhead, teams can focus on higher-value activities, easing the shift from traditional VMware setups by allowing businesses to re-group and migrate workloads at their own pace.
Migration from on-premises VMware to hosted VMware on Azure is seamless, with minimal disruption. AVS uses the same VMware virtualisation platform, allowing workloads to move easily and quickly without the need for refactoring. With HCX vMotion technology, you can extend your on-premises VMware networks to AVS, enabling virtual machines to migrate without reallocating IP addresses.
Another significant benefit of AVS is that it eliminates the need to re-skill employees or introduce new tools. Businesses can continue using the same skills and personnel that manage their on-premises VMware environment. IT administrators access familiar tools for configuration and management, reducing the learning curve and maintaining the level of control they have come to expect with VMware.
When you migrate your VMware with AVS, Microsoft serves as your single point of contact for all issues. Furthermore, if VMware’s involvement is needed, Microsoft manages that on your behalf. Microsoft also handles the underlying platform and infrastructure, freeing up your operational staff to focus on higher-value activities and reducing overall support demands.
Microsoft’s scale and negotiating power means they can offer VMware licensing at very favourable prices compared to on-premises VMware. AVS offers flexible pricing options, allowing customers to choose pay-per-hour usage or reserve capacity for one, three, or five years. Instead of investing in and managing their own servers, businesses can lease VMware environments from Microsoft, benefiting from predictable and affordable pricing. Customers can also lock in discounted rates for longer terms, with reserved instances that can convert to Azure IaaS.
AVS offers a compelling combination of cost savings, reduced management overhead, and seamless migration, making it an ideal choice for VMware customers looking to modernise at their own pace.
As always, a thorough evaluation and total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis are essential to determine the best-fit solution – whether that’s AVS or an alternative approach. Some potential limitations of migrating to AVS include:
Data#3 can help determine if AVS is the right fit for your business through a comprehensive solution assessment involving:
Your organisation may be eligible to access Microsoft funding to undertake this assessment, providing a risk-free way for you to explore the benefits of migrating to AVS. Contact our team using the form below to find out if you qualify.
Data#3 brings extensive experience in delivering datacentre solutions, from procurement and deployment to seamless migration. As a leading Microsoft cloud provider and Azure Expert Managed Service Provider (MSP), Data#3 leverages its deep partnership with both Broadcom and Microsoft to offer clients robust, integrated solutions that simplify and optimise their IT infrastructure.