Broadcom ended the VCSP program, leaving thousands of MSP and CSPs with an expiration date on their virtualization licenses. Now what? The clock is ticking and service providers need to find an alternative solution that maintains their margins, provides at the very least equivalent enterprise-level virtualization features, and preserves their operational model. On top of that, they need to find this alternative quickly. The close is ticking and the ball drops in March 2027.
A wait-and-see attitude isn’t going to serve you or your customers. While everyone can hope for a change of circumstances, a new opportunity from Broadcom, or a quick fix, you don’t want to bet your business on it.
Many service providers are deeply invested in both their hardware and their current vendor relationships. Retooling your entire business to accommodate a new virtualization solution is not only costly and time-consuming; it’s out of financial reach for all but the largest provider organizations.
One temptation is to develop a virtualization solution in-house. Leveraging one of the open source virtualization engines and building your own solution sounds promising, as it could lower cost and free providers from dependence on fickle vendors. But service providers aren’t software developers. Understanding your core competencies and focusing on serving your customers is a solid business model. Redirecting resources to reinvent the wheel isn’t.
The time to plan is now; the time to act is coming very quickly.
Service providers need to adopt a solution that meets some very strict requirements
- It must replace the core functionality of VMware; clients aren’t willing to accept loss of features or degradation in service.
- It must preserve your organization’s investment, in both infrastructure and resources.
- You must develop a migration plan as part of the replacement adoption; it cannot be an afterthought.
A successful VMware exit will not only take into account your business requirements and abilities, but also needs to ensure client satisfaction isn’t negatively impacted by the change. After all, your clients outsource these processes for a reason. The hallmark of a successful exit will be not only improved operations for you, but having the entire process be as transparent to your clients as possible.
For the MSP business, the end of the VMware partner program is a huge shakeup for providers who rely on reselling virtualization as a core facet of their business. But as with every disruption there is opportunity. Freed from the vendor lock-in of VMware, MSPs can concentrate on building a service lead business model on infrastructure they own, offering the vendor add-ons that best suit both their customers’ needs and their own business model. Virtualization is no longer a pass-through SKU with the MSP as the middleman. Now virtualization can be bundled as a productized service, differentiated by the MSP’s distinctive brand.
In day-to-day operations, MSPs can focus on continuity of service while expanding their services portfolios. Migrations will proceed as planned, controlled non-events. SLAs will be preserved; DR plans won’t change. Rather than disrupting operational processes, the smooth transition will allow the opportunity to preserve the practices that work well and improve/retool. The migration to a new, modern stack offers the chance to tweak suboptimal practices to improve scale and reduce technical debt.
Private Cloud Director and vJailbreak
Platform9’s Private Cloud Director allows service providers and enterprises to exit VMware without risk, without a massive reinvestment, without retooling your infrastructure, and without retraining your staff. Private Cloud Director delivers the virtualization capabilities IT teams rely on with a familiar UI that VMware admins can adopt easily. Private Cloud Director goes beyond the standard VMware enterprise features like high availability, software define networking, and dynamic resource rebalancing. Offering core multi-tenancy capabilities with highest level of isolation available, tenant separation can be defined at top-level domains and geo boundaries.
Multi-tenancy in Platform9 isn’t an add-on or operation model; it’s a construct built-into the product. Coupled with strong partner support, allowing IT organizations to maintain their existing relationships with storage, DR, and VDI vendors, Private Cloud Director is the safest alternative to VMware without losing enterprise functionality.
The biggest hurdle for service providers exiting VMware of course is actually exiting VMware. A better business model or improved daily operations only happen if you can’t move your workloads in a predictable, sustainable method that minimizes impact for the business users. vJailbreak, Platform9’s free VMware migration tool, lets you migrate your VMs with the reliability, flexibility, and performance demanded by enterprise IT groups. vJailbreak features an easy to use GUI, automation options to accommodate the most demanding customer needs, and rapid execution. Paired with Platform9’s expertise, vJailbreak enables service providers to migrate their client workloads with minimal risk and business interruption.
These goals may seem ambitious, but not only are they achievable, Platform9 clients are already well on their way with their VMware exits, proving the value of Private Cloud Director and vJailbreak in daily operations. A Fortune 500 enterprise is currently migrating 40k VMs and 3000 hypervisors to Private Cloud Director at a rate of over 200 VMs per day. A leading CSP recently chose Private Cloud Director to replace their extensive (10K plus core) VMware estate. These customers are already seeing the value of adopting Platform9 solutions in the wake of the VCSP curtailment.
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