What are your options when VMware renewal costs spike?
If your last VMware renewal felt like a gut punch, you aren’t alone. Since Broadcom acquired VMware in late 2023, mid-size organizations across Canada have watched their virtualization bills climb — in some cases by eight or 10 times what they paid before. Most still renewed simply because there wasn’t sufficient runway to do anything else.
That’s the rock (pay an increased price that may not match the value you get) and the hard place (pull out the platform that runs nearly every workload you own). Neither option feels like a real choice.
Fortunately, there’s a third path. With a clear assessment and a phased plan, you can move off VMware (or reduce how much you depend on it) before yet another costly renewal comes due. At OnX, we’ve been having these conversations with virtually all of our enterprise and mid-market clients. This post shares what we’re hearing and what we’ve learned, so you can find a soft place to land, too.
What changed with VMware licensing after Broadcom bought VMware?
Broadcom has rebuilt the VMware business model around its largest clients. Among the main changes: Perpetual licenses ended, replaced by multi-year subscriptions. With thousands of individual products collapsed into a handful of bundles, many organizations now pay for features they don’t use. And pricing moved to a per-core model with a minimum core count per CPU, which penalizes smaller servers.
There’s also a hardware cost. Newer VMware releases drop support for some older processors and network cards, so some organizations face a server refresh on top of the spike in software costs.
Broadcom has been open about this direction, indicating that it prefers to concentrate on the large enterprises that generate most of its revenue.
Why are mid-size organizations hit hardest by the Broadcom VMware price increase?
Mid-size organizations carry the most cost and get the least attention. Bundles and core minimums are built for very large data centres, so a smaller footprint pays for capacity and/or functionality from Broadcom it won’t use. And by Broadcom’s definition, “mid-size” covers far more of the market than you may think.
Most of the organizations we talk to have already absorbed one painful renewal. The real question now is the next one, one to three years out. IT leaders want to know how to avoid signing that contract on the same terms.
What is the Great Virtualization Reset?
The Great Virtualization Reset is the industry-wide rethink of the hypervisor that Broadcom’s changes set off. For two decades, VMware was the default choice that captured the lion’s share of the market. Now organizations are either diversifying across more than one hypervisor or replacing VMware outright.
To be clear, VMware is still an excellent product. The sticking point is the price tag. That makes the reset a question of fit: Which platform gives you the functionality you need at a cost you can sustain?
What are the best VMware alternatives for mid-size organizations?
Three platforms come up in almost every client conversation we have:
|
Platform |
Where it stands out |
|
HPE Morpheus (VM Essentials and Enterprise) |
A single control plane across hypervisors, public clouds, and on-premises infrastructure |
|
Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization |
Organizations running, or moving toward, container-based applications |
|
Microsoft Hyper-V |
Organizations already standardized on Microsoft infrastructure and licensing |
In the work we’ve done so far, HPE has stood out on management. HPE Morpheus HVM replaces the VMware hypervisor itself. HPE Morpheus Software plays the role vCenter plays today, with a wider reach. The Enterprise version can manage VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix, and Proxmox environments, plus AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud — all from a single console. The entry-level VME version can manage VMware and HVM.
Because it’s newer code, the HPE stack also avoids much of the “tech tax” that accumulates after decades of development. Two other pieces round it out: HPE OpsRamp Software gives visibility across multi-vendor infrastructure (not just HPE hardware), and HPE Zerto Software handles business continuity and disaster recovery.
What should you evaluate before migrating off VMware?
Price gets the conversation started, but functionality decides whether a move succeeds. Here are some questions we frequently hear from CIOs, infrastructure leaders, and CISOs:
- What will it cost over the full term? Compare licensing, hardware refresh, migration services, and training against your next VMware renewal.
- Will we lose any functionality we rely on? Map how your team uses VMware today. Can the new platform automate VM moves without manual intervention? Can it automate environment setup and daily tasks?
- Does it work with the tools we already own? Your backup, recovery, and monitoring tools need to be supported on day one.
- How much retraining will our team need? Look at what’s the same, what’s different, and who’ll sit beside your staff as they learn it.
- What happens after cutover? How you tackle day-two operations (including patching, upgrades, and troubleshooting) matters as much as the migration itself.
Every environment is different. One organization runs hundreds of servers and massive storage; another runs a few hosts. The right answer depends on your workloads, not on what worked for someone else.
What does a VMware migration assessment look like in practice?
A Canadian law firm came to OnX with this very problem. With a VMware renewal quote that was roughly eight times higher, the firm’s IT leaders wanted to understand their options before signing.
OnX ran a formal pre-sales assessment of the firm’s infrastructure, support requirements, cloud strategy, and long-term goals. For any law firm, privacy, security, and compliance requirements must shape every option, so an early finding was that the cost of the status quo deserved the same scrutiny as the cost of change.
From there, we evaluated several platforms against the firm’s workloads. HPE Morpheus emerged as a strong fit for three reasons. First, it offered like-for-like functionality with the firm’s VMware environment. Second, HPE’s partner network was growing, and its backup partners were following through. One backup platform the firm relied on was already certified before implementation; another was on HPE’s roadmap, and HPE’s record of delivering on that roadmap gave the firm confidence. Finally, Morpheus could integrate with the firm’s existing investments, including its third-party data protection tools.
Under the plan OnX helped develop, the law firm doesn’t have to make the switch all at once. VMware and HPE HVM can run side by side, with Morpheus managing both from one console and HPE Zerto supporting data mobility. That way, workloads move when the business is ready.
How long does a VMware migration take?
A smaller environment can move in several weeks. A larger one can take months. Complex estates can require more than a year. The timeline depends on the number of workloads, storage volume, and application dependencies, as well as how much change your business can absorb at once.
That’s why timing matters. If your next renewal is 12 to 36 months away, the time to assess is now. Starting early gives you room to migrate in phases instead of racing a contract deadline.
What if your current IT partner isn’t giving you straight answers?
Some organizations tell us their current partner keeps steering them back toward renewal. Others get a list of alternatives without tangible guidance for how to get there. If that sounds familiar, you deserve a clearer view.
OnX has worked with VMware for 30 years, and we still sell and renew it. We’re also longstanding partners with HPE, Red Hat, Microsoft, and other hypervisor providers. That gives us a practical, unbiased view of what each one does well.
Here’s how we help you find a soft place to land:
- A no-cost pre-sales assessment. We evaluate three or four options against your specific environment and workloads.
- A phased migration plan. You move on your timeline, with VMware and your new platform running side by side.
- Hands-on delivery. Our professional services team handles implementation and migration and trains your staff shoulder to shoulder.
- Support for day two and beyond. We stay with you after cutover, so your team can run the new environment with confidence.
We’re already talking with every one of our clients about these decisions. If you’re still figuring out your next step — or if you’re not getting the guidance you need — let’s talk.