Broadcom stopped selling new VMware perpetual licenses and stopped accepting normal Support and Subscription renewals for perpetual offerings. That did not automatically disable perpetual licenses customers already bought. The practical issue is what happens when support expires: access to support, upgrades, downloads, and security maintenance may become more limited, depending on the product, version, contract, and applicable policy.
New VMware purchases are primarily subscription-based, with VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF) as the main offers. Licensing is generally calculated by physical CPU cores rather than the older socket-oriented model. Partners, resellers, cloud providers, and test labs face separate entitlement and authorization changes.
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The short version
- New perpetual sales ended: Broadcom announced the change on December 11, 2023. Product-level effective dates varied.
- Existing licenses generally remain usable: Broadcom did not universally erase or remotely disable previously purchased perpetual licenses.
- Support is separate from ownership: A perpetual license may continue running even after Support and Subscription coverage expires, but support, upgrades, downloads, and patch eligibility require separate review.
- New purchases are subscriptions: VCF and VVF are the principal current offers, with smaller subscription options referenced for some deployments.
- Partners are affected too: VMware’s partner program became invitation-based, authorized reseller coverage narrowed in some regions, and VCSP licensing moved toward subscription and consumption workflows.
The accurate description is not that Broadcom “shut off” all perpetual VMware software. It ended new sales and normal renewal of perpetual offerings while changing the commercial path for future purchases.
What Broadcom actually ended
Broadcom’s December 2023 announcement covered the end of availability for new perpetual VMware licenses, Support and Subscription renewals for perpetual products, and certain older purchasing-program arrangements. It also consolidated VMware’s product portfolio and ended or changed some SaaS and hosted offerings. The exact effective date depended on the product and commercial program.
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VMware’s follow-up guidance on end of availability said customers who were not at renewal did not necessarily need to take immediate action.
These are separate events:
| Change | What it means |
|---|---|
| End of new perpetual sales | New customers generally cannot buy the old perpetual VMware SKUs. |
| End of perpetual SnS renewals | Customers may not be able to renew the old support contract on its previous terms. |
| Portfolio consolidation | Many former standalone products are no longer available as separate, à-la-carte purchases. |
| Subscription replacements | New VMware purchases generally use VCF, VVF, or another current subscription offer. |
| Existing perpetual ownership | A license already purchased generally remains governed by its original agreement and does not automatically disappear. |
Timeline: from perpetual licensing to the current model
- December 11, 2023: Broadcom announced the end of new perpetual VMware license sales, perpetual SnS renewals, and a simplified subscription portfolio.
- January 22, 2024: VMware published customer guidance explaining end-of-availability treatment.
- February 5, 2024: The invitation-based Broadcom Advantage Partner Program transition was scheduled to begin.
- June 2025: Broadcom announced a more focused partner strategy and reduced authorized reseller coverage in parts of the Americas and Asia-Pacific/Japan regions.
- July 7, 2025: Broadcom’s VCSP guidance said perpetual keys generated before this date would be removed from eligible commit contracts and replaced by subscription-key workflows.
- November 1, 2025: Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution documentation said new node purchases no longer included a VCF license or subscription under the former arrangement.
- June 10, 2026: Broadcom updated documentation covering VCF/VVF solution license-key behavior.
The transition is therefore not a new 2026 announcement. It began in late 2023 and has continued through changes to products, partners, cloud licensing, portals, and license-key workflows.
Can an existing perpetual VMware installation keep running?
Generally, yes, subject to the original license agreement and product-specific terms. Ending sales does not by itself revoke a customer’s right to use software that was already properly licensed.
However, ownership and support are different rights:
- The right to run the installed version may continue.
- The right to receive newer releases may end with the support contract.
- Standard technical support may no longer be available after expiry.
- Access to downloads, license keys, and support-portal resources may change.
- Compatibility with new servers, firmware, guest operating systems, and security requirements may become a problem.
Broadcom has separately stated that customers who let maintenance lapse can continue using perpetual licenses securely and receive zero-day security patches for supported vSphere versions. That statement should not be treated as a universal lifetime-support promise for every VMware product or every version.
Before support access changes, preserve permitted installers, patches, entitlement certificates, license records, contract documents, configuration exports, and support contacts. Do not assume that an old license file or download will always be easy to retrieve later.
What happens when support or renewal expires?
There is no single answer for every product. A customer with an active perpetual deployment should ask for written answers to these questions:
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- What exact product, edition, version, and entitlement do we own?
- What is the support expiration date?
- Can the existing SKU still be renewed, or must it be converted?
- What support, upgrade, download, and patch rights continue after expiry?
- Would reinstatement require a fee, a new subscription, or a new commercial agreement?
- What happens to existing licenses if a subscription is later cancelled?
- Are new hardware, firmware, compliance, insurance, or audit requirements compatible with the unsupported version?
An expired support contract does not automatically mean the installation is illegal or that Broadcom will remotely disable the hypervisor. The risks are entitlement, security, supportability, compliance, hardware lifecycle, and operational continuity.
The renewal decision tree
If your perpetual support is still active:
- Inventory physical hosts, sockets, cores, clusters, versions, and installed features.
- Request a written renewal or conversion proposal from Broadcom or an authorized partner.
- Compare remaining on the perpetual deployment without support, moving to VVF, moving to VCF, and migrating to another platform.
- Ask whether a trade-in or upgrade incentive applies. Broadcom has discussed such incentives, but they are not guaranteed discounts.
- Model the minimum billable cores, contract term, included services, and renewal exposure.
If support has already expired:
- Confirm whether the deployed version remains supported or eligible for security fixes.
- Verify access to installers, patches, license keys, and documentation.
- Test backups and disaster recovery before making a platform decision.
- Obtain a reinstatement or subscription quote, then compare it with migration costs.
- Review cyber-insurance, regulatory, customer-contract, and internal security requirements.
VCF versus VVF
Broadcom’s current portfolio is centered on subscriptions rather than the old collection of individually purchased VMware products. The VCF and VVF comparison describes the principal paths.
| Offer | Typical fit | Important qualification |
|---|---|---|
| VMware Cloud Foundation | Large private-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments needing an integrated platform spanning virtualization, operations, networking/security, and cloud-management capabilities. | May include functionality a smaller deployment does not need. Portability applies only under defined eligibility and destination rules. |
| VMware vSphere Foundation | Organizations that primarily need virtualization and operations-management capabilities without the complete VCF stack. | It is a bundle, not a return to buying every former component separately. |
| Other subscription offers | Some limited deployments may qualify for products such as vSphere Standard or Essentials Plus. | Availability, minimums, eligibility, geography, and pricing must be confirmed in the current price book. |
Broadcom’s current FAQ says customers generally cannot purchase the principal VMware offerings à la carte. Pricing is normally quote-based through Broadcom, a channel partner, or a qualified OEM partner.
Why core-based licensing changes the economics
The shift is not only from perpetual licensing to subscriptions. It also changes the unit used for calculation. New VMware offers generally use physical CPU cores, while many older VMware purchases were evaluated primarily by socket or legacy SKU.
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- Four physical hosts
- Two CPUs per host
- 32 cores per CPU
- Total physical cores: 4 × 2 × 32 = 256 cores
If the processors had 64 cores each, the same four-host, two-socket design would contain 512 cores. A quote based on cores can therefore change substantially even when the number of hosts and sockets is unchanged. Minimum licensing quantities, bundle contents, term length, support level, and included products also matter.
Do not compare an old socket-based invoice with a new subscription by simply multiplying the old price by a number of years. Include hardware refreshes, backup, storage, migration, support, taxes, cloud infrastructure, and internal operating costs. Broadcom has claimed that some subscription list prices were reduced by up to 50% compared with previous subscription offers; that does not prove that every former perpetual customer will pay less.
What “testing customers and partners” means
Customer test environments
Customers often need separate environments for upgrades, security-patch validation, hardware refreshes, backup restoration, application compatibility, disaster recovery, performance testing, and migration pilots. A production entitlement does not automatically answer whether a separate lab, development, or disaster-recovery environment is licensed. Review the product documentation and contract terms for each use case.
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Partner NFR environments
Resellers, MSPs, consultants, and technology partners may need VMware environments to reproduce faults, train engineers, demonstrate capabilities, validate integrations, and prepare migration runbooks. Broadcom’s Not for Resale guidance limits NFR licenses to authorized test, demonstration, training, and development purposes. They are not a substitute for customer production licensing, and the guidance restricts use involving protected or private customer or partner data.
VCSP consumption licensing
Cloud-service providers face a separate process. Broadcom’s VCSP consumption-portal guidance describes subscription license-key generation and management for eligible end customers. It also says perpetual keys generated before July 7, 2025, would be removed from relevant commit contracts.
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Broadcom moved VMware partner activity into the invitation-based Broadcom Advantage Partner Program. It also said it was focusing on a smaller group of strategic partners and reduced authorized reseller coverage in some regions.
For customers, that can mean:
- A former reseller may no longer be authorized to quote or renew VMware products.
- A support contact or distribution route may change.
- Customers may need to locate a new authorized reseller or qualified partner.
- VCSPs must manage subscription and consumption processes instead of relying on older perpetual-key workflows.
- Partner laboratories may require current NFR or subscription entitlements.
Ask every proposed partner to identify whether it is acting as a reseller, distributor, OEM, VCSP, managed-service provider, or professional-services firm. Request written confirmation of authorization, the exact SKU or offer, minimum cores, term, support scope, renewal terms, and portability.
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License portability is not a blanket right to move any VMware license anywhere. The VCF portability policy applies to eligible subscriptions, certified destinations, purchase conditions, and other prerequisites. Integrated OEM or value-added hardware-and-software offerings may not be disaggregated for portability.
Cloud customers must distinguish between:
- VMware software purchased directly from Broadcom
- Software bundled into a cloud provider’s service
- Bring-your-own-license or bring-your-own-subscription arrangements
- Cloud infrastructure charges
- Separate VMware licensing charges
Microsoft’s Azure VMware Solution documentation says that from November 1, 2025, new Azure VMware Solution node purchases no longer included a VCF license or subscription under the former arrangement. Customers using the portable model may need to purchase VCF subscriptions directly from Broadcom. Existing reserved instances with included licensing may continue through their reserved term. This Azure policy should not be generalized to every hyperscaler.
Should an organization stay with VMware or migrate?
| Path | May fit when… | Main risks or caveats |
|---|---|---|
| Stay on existing perpetual VMware | The environment is stable, the team has strong VMware skills, and migration risk exceeds the cost of limited support. | Support, patch, hardware-refresh, compliance, and ecosystem risks increase over time. |
| Move to VVF | The organization wants VMware virtualization and operations features without the full private-cloud stack. | Per-core pricing, minimums, bundled functionality, and future renewals may be unfavorable. |
| Move to VCF | The organization needs an integrated private-cloud or hybrid-cloud platform and can use the included capabilities. | Higher commercial commitment and operational complexity may not suit a small estate. |
| Microsoft Hyper-V | The organization already has substantial Windows Server Datacenter licensing and Microsoft management expertise. | Windows Server still has per-core and CAL requirements; licensing depends on edition, host, VM, Software Assurance, and subscription rights. See Microsoft’s guidance. |
| Nutanix AHV | The organization wants an integrated hyperconverged platform and enterprise management model. | Hardware, storage, networking, backup, skills, and platform dependencies require validation. |
| Proxmox VE | Open-source flexibility, cost predictability, and Linux-based operational skills matter. | Subscriptions are sold per server/node and tied to socket count; VMware-specific integrations may need redesign. See Proxmox’s pricing page. |
| HPE Morpheus VM Essentials | The organization wants staged migration and side-by-side management of VMware and HVM workloads. | It is not feature-identical to VMware. HPE publishes a suggested U.S. list price of $600 per CPU socket per year including support, but actual pricing varies by partner, region, and taxes. See HPE’s product page. |
No alternative is automatically cheaper. A fair comparison includes migration labor, application certification, storage and networking changes, backup redesign, Windows licensing, hardware, support, training, and the cost of running two platforms during transition.
Quick Recap
Renewal and migration checklist
- Export license, entitlement, contract, and support records.
- Record support expiration dates and the exact deployed versions.
- Inventory every host’s sockets, cores, clusters, storage, networking, and workloads.
- Download permitted installers, patches, documentation, and recovery materials.
- Confirm the support and security status of each production version.
- Request written VCF, VVF, and any applicable smaller-offer quotes.
- Verify the seller’s current Broadcom authorization.
- Price at least one alternative platform using total cost of ownership, not only license cost.
- Test backup restoration and disaster-recovery procedures.
- Validate application, hardware, storage, network, monitoring, and automation compatibility.
- Build a staged migration and rollback plan.
- Train administrators before a production cutover.
- Review cyber-insurance, regulatory, customer-contract, and audit requirements.
- For cloud deployments, verify the provider’s current license-bundling, portability, reservation, and BYOS/BYOL rules.
Common misconceptions
- “Perpetual means unsupported immediately.” Not necessarily. The license and support contract are separate, although support and patch rights require product-specific review.
- “A subscription always stops the software on its expiration date.” Do not assume that without product-specific evidence. Expiration creates entitlement, support, compliance, and operational risks, but enforcement behavior depends on the product and contract.
- “Everyone must buy VCF.” VCF is principal, but VVF and certain smaller subscription offers may apply.
- “Any VMware component can still be bought separately.” Broadcom’s current FAQ says the principal offerings are not generally sold à la carte.
- “Any VMware license can move to any cloud.” Portability is limited by eligibility, destination, purchase terms, and OEM restrictions.
- “Partner NFR licenses can run customer production.” They cannot be treated as production licensing.
- “A former reseller can always renew the old license.” Authorization and product availability changed; verify both in writing.
- “A cloud provider’s VMware price includes the license forever.” Bundled licensing can change, as the Azure VMware Solution documentation illustrates.
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
