Ryan Mallory, Chief Operating Officer at Flexible.
Broadcom’s acquisition of cloud infrastructure leader VMware in November 2023 is a great development the cloud services landscape. Updates to VMware’s licensing structures, product catalog, partnership programs, and more have brought many organizations to a crossroads, requiring a re-evaluation of what technology investments and IT roadmaps are best suited to make sure future success.
Managing these changes is a challenge, but additionally a chance. While change is disruptive, it encourages CIOs to review existing processes and develop latest best practices for his or her teams and organizations.
Where do you begin? To determine VMware’s ideal role in your organization’s future technology stack, you could take a critical take a look at your virtual environments and total cost of ownership (TCO). In doing so, you possibly can optimize your technology deployments to cut back costs, increase operational efficiency, and construct a stronger foundation for future growth.
How VMware changes impact your small business
For most organizations, Broadcom’s move to a subscription model can have the best impact on total cost of ownership. This change ends perpetual licensing agreements that previously gave customers perpetual access to VMware products for a one-time fee. Instead of licensing individual products as needed, customers can now choose from two subscription tiers, each of which bundles many products together.
The other big impacts are ongoing partner relationships. If you currently work with a managed service provider (MSP), cloud provider, or other partner to administer your VMware environments, changes to the VMware Partnership Program may change the way in which you’re employed with third-party support.
The latest Broadcom Advantage partner program – particularly the very best tier, Pinnacle – offers advantages comparable to enhanced support services that can assist partners ease their customers’ transition to the brand new subscription model. However, check the partnership status of your current vendors, as not all former VMware partners have had the chance to take part in the brand new program.
Six steps to upgrade your tech stack
All VMware customers will feel the impact of Broadcom’s changes, from large cloud providers to small businesses that manage their infrastructure through MSPs. No matter which category your organization falls into, as a frontrunner you might have a key role to play in managing the disruption.
Take advantage of Broadcom’s evolution today as a chance to strengthen your cloud infrastructure by taking the next steps.
1. Optimize existing workloads. Optimizing workload placement across the general public cloud, on-premises, and personal cloud is vital to achieving low latency, high performance, and value control. Take inventory of your existing workloads and use a performance monitoring tool to know resource utilization, discover network bottlenecks, and flag other areas for improvement. Use these findings to contemplate whether workloads needs to be deployed of their optimal environments or moved to enhance results and right-size virtual machines for deployment.
2. Understand subscription features. The subscription package that is right for many VMware customers, VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) includes advanced features just like the NSX network virtualization platform. While these tools may not have been a part of your technology stack before, consider it as expanding your technology horizons and exploring solutions you have not considered before. When you discover the appropriate use cases, these powerful features can unlock unexpected operational efficiencies, increase agility, and improve security—increasing the worth of your overall VCF subscription.
3. Assess skills gaps. Advanced features require advanced skills to implement. Assess your team’s skills to find out for those who can support useful VCF features internally. If not, consider upskilling or leveraging third-party expertise to benefit from latest advantages.
4. Explore alternatives. As you evaluate VMware’s role in your IT roadmap, familiarize yourself with other hypervisors comparable to Nutanix AHV and Microsoft Hyper-V. You may also consider whether workloads previously deployed with VMware are best moved to public cloud providers comparable to Azure or AWS. Evaluate your options not only based on cost, but additionally on whether the providers meet your technical, security and compliance requirements.
5. Use a FinOps tool. It’s difficult to evaluate the total, long-term impact of VCF on TCO, especially whenever you consider potential changes to workload placement or other customizations. A 3rd-party vendor with appropriate expertise can use a FinOps tool to scan your virtual environment and model future TCO for a variety of different deployment scenarios. This strategic work not only gives you the data it is advisable make informed decisions, but may also uncover cost savings in the general public cloud you could then reallocate to other business initiatives.
6. Invest in change management. Whichever path you select, implement a comprehensive change management plan that may guide your organization through the rollout of your updated IT roadmap. Consider the way you will use latest technologies, whether it is advisable adjust internal processes, the way you will communicate changes to your team and the broader organization, and the way you’ll train stakeholders on latest solutions.
Invest in the long run of your organization
Changes to foundational cloud infrastructure software like VMware could cause disruption, but for those who approach disruption strategically and proactively, you possibly can turn it into opportunity. By fastidiously evaluating your organization’s current IT roadmap in light of VMware changes, your leadership team can lay the inspiration to maneuver your cloud infrastructure into the long run.
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