Leaving VMware After Broadcom: The 2026 Guide for UK Mid-Market IT

Most UK mid-market organisations that run VMware now face two pressures at once: a renewal under Broadcom's per-core subscription model, and the end of general support for vSphere 8 on 11 October 2027. You can renew, negotiate, move to another on-premises platform or move workloads into Azure, and the right answer usually differs from one workload to the next. This guide sets out the facts as of October 2026, each one tied to a dated source, and explains how we would plan the exit.

What has changed at VMware since Broadcom bought it?

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware on 22 November 2023. It changed how VMware is sold within weeks, and the changes have continued through 2026.

Perpetual licences ended

Broadcom stopped selling VMware perpetual licences in December 2023, The Register reported. It also stopped selling new support and subscription (SnS) renewals for those licences. Existing holders keep the right to use what they bought, but they get support only until their current SnS contract ends. An estate on perpetual licences therefore runs without vendor support once its SnS lapses, unless the owner moves to a subscription.

Two bundles replaced the old catalogue

Broadcom cut the core portfolio to two bundles: VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). Both are the editions on the version 9 line, and VMware announced the general availability of VCF 9.1 in a blog post dated 12 May 2026. VCF adds NSX networking, VCF Automation and HCX on top of what VVF includes.

vSphere Standard and vSphere Enterprise Plus remain listed, but only up to vSphere 8.0 Update 3. No vSphere 9 Standard or Enterprise Plus exists. VMware told The Register in September 2026 that it is working on a new vSphere Standard edition. Paul Turner, chief product officer of the VCF Division, made the comment, and Ram Velaga said Standard suits environments of roughly 128 cores. We have found no release date, version number or price for it as of October 2026. Treat it as a question to raise at renewal, not as a plan.

Per-core licensing with a 16-core floor

VCF and VVF subscriptions are licensed per physical core. Each CPU counts as at least 16 cores, so a host with two 8-core CPUs is licensed as 32 cores. Hosts with small CPUs pay for cores they do not have.

Distributors told partners in late March 2025 that the minimum order would rise from 16 to 72 cores per product from 10 April 2025, for new purchases and renewals. The rule never took effect. Heise reported a distributor confirming that customers could again buy from 16 cores, and Dutch IT Channel reported on 8 April 2025 that Broadcom had cancelled it for EMEA. We have not found a Broadcom document that states the current minimum outside EMEA, so get it in writing from your reseller.

The free hypervisor went, then returned with limits

Broadcom ended the free vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi 7.x and 8.x) in February 2024. A free edition came back with ESXi 8.0 Update 3e (build 24677879), which users download from the Broadcom Support Portal. vCenter cannot manage it. It has no vMotion, DRS, HA or VADP backup, it allows up to two physical CPUs and 8 vCPUs per VM, and Broadcom provides no support. Broadcom's knowledge base article does not mention a free ESXi 9 edition. We treat free ESXi as a lab tool, not a production platform.

Cloud provider partners lost their routes to market

Broadcom ended its existing VMware Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) programme outside the EEA on 31 October 2025 and replaced it with an invitation-only model. Partners it did not invite received non-renewal notices on 15 July 2025. The white-label model, which let small providers resell VMware cloud services through larger partners, ended on the same day.

The European VCSP programme closed in January 2026, and dropped partners had to finish all transactions by 31 March 2026. The Register reported in October 2026 that dropped partners lost the right to resell from October 2025 and may not run VMware-based clouds after March 2027. IBM has sold contracts for hundreds of its VCF 7 and 8 cloud customers to 11:11 Systems. Anyone who runs VMware in a hosted or managed cloud should ask the provider now whether it remains in Broadcom's programme.

Support end dates

vSphere 7.0 reached end of general support on 2 October 2025, after Broadcom extended the date from 2 April 2025. vSphere 8.0 (ESXi 8.x and vCenter 8.x) reaches end of general support on 11 October 2027. vSAN 8.x, NSX 4.x, VCF 5.2.x, Aria 8.18.x, HCX 4.x and Live Recovery 9.0.x reach end of service on the same day. Broadcom says it then gives "no Technical Support and no new patches", and it recommends moving to VCF 9 or VVF 9.

That date matters more than any renewal date. A vSphere 8 estate has two real choices before October 2027: upgrade to the version 9 line under a VCF or VVF subscription, or run somewhere else.

How much more does VMware cost under Broadcom?

The public figures on VMware cost increases come from parties to disputes and from industry commentators. None of them is a Broadcom figure, and several sit inside disputes that remain open or settled on private terms. Read each one as a claim.

Gartner research VP Julia Palmer also said, as reported by The Register in September 2025, that more than a third of workloads now on VMware will run on another platform by 2028.

None of these figures predicts your renewal. Your number depends on your core count, the bundle you need and the terms you negotiate. Get a written quote for the exact cores you will license, then compare it with the alternatives over the same period. Our guide to building an honest VMware exit cost model shows how to do that without flattering either side.

What is happening with VMware in the UK and the EU?

The European Commission and CISPE

The European Commission asked Broadcom for information in 2024 after it received information that Broadcom was changing VMware licensing and support conditions. The cloud industry group CISPE has pressed the issue since:

• July 2025: CISPE filed an action at the General Court of the EU to annul the Commission's approval of the Broadcom-VMware merger. We have found no hearing or judgment as of October 2026.
• 19 March 2026: CISPE filed an antitrust complaint with the Commission about the end of the VCSP programme in Europe, and asked for interim measures to suspend the termination and reinstate the white-label programme. Broadcom said it "strongly disagrees with the allegations by CISPE".
• 14 May 2026: CISPE said the Commission's antitrust investigation is ongoing, and that Broadcom has asked a European court to suspend a Commission request for information pending an appeal.
• 10 July 2026: other cloud trade groups wrote jointly to EU competition chief Teresa Ribera and tech chief Henna Virkkunen, asking for a transition period of at least three years.

We have found no Commission decision on CISPE's request for interim measures. Do not build a plan that depends on one.

The UK: the CMA, Tesco and the remaining providers

The Competition and Markets Authority cleared the merger in August 2023 after a phase 2 review. We have found no CMA investigation or published complaint about VMware licensing since then.

Tesco sued Broadcom, VMware and its reseller Computacenter in the UK High Court in 2025, claiming at least £100 million. Tesco says Broadcom's changes undermined perpetual VMware licences it bought in 2021. Its 2026 filings, as reported, say it is moving about 40,000 server workloads off VMware and that it declined at least four Broadcom offers. These are Tesco's claims in live litigation, and we have found no ruling on them.

The Register reported in March 2026 that around nine UK cloud providers remain in VMware's partner plans after the European VCSP changes. It named six: Redcentric, ANS, Vodafone, Softcat, Caranet and Node4. A UK hosted VMware option therefore still exists, but from a smaller pool of providers.

What are your options for leaving VMware?

You have more choices than "renew" or "move everything to the cloud", and most estates use several. We group them into three families.

Renew or renegotiate with Broadcom

Renewal buys time, and sometimes time is the right purchase. The levers that matter are the core count (retire and consolidate hosts before you count), the bundle (do not pay for NSX, VCF Automation or HCX through VCF if VVF covers what you use) and the term. A short renewal can act as a bridge while you exit the workloads that should leave. It does not remove the vSphere 8 deadline: staying past October 2027 means the version 9 line.

Move to another on-premises or hybrid platform

Several mature platforms run VMs on your own hardware.

• Azure Local is Microsoft's Hyper-V-based on-premises infrastructure, managed through Azure Arc and priced per physical core plus any Azure services you use. Microsoft lists it as eligible for Azure Hybrid Benefit, and AKS on Azure Local lets you create Windows or Linux Kubernetes node pools from Azure.
• SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) is open-source hyperconverged infrastructure built on Kubernetes, KubeVirt and Longhorn. It runs ordinary VMs on bare metal, and SUSE Rancher manages Harvester clusters alongside Kubernetes clusters under one set of access controls. Its vm-import-controller add-on imports VMs from vSphere, but it shuts down the source VM during import. The latest release, v1.9.0 (16 September 2026), carries a warning in its release notes that upgrading to it "is currently not recommended", with fixes planned for v1.9.1. Our Rancher, Harvester and AKS guide covers this route in depth.
• Nutanix AHV comes built into Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure and is included in its licence. The free Nutanix Move tool migrates VMs from ESXi.
• Proxmox VE 9.2, released on 21 May 2026 and based on Debian 13, has a built-in ESXi import feature.
• Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization runs VMs on KVM through KubeVirt, next to containers. Its Virtualization Engine edition is a VM-only option, and the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV 2.12) moves VMs from vSphere.

Move to Azure

Azure gives you five routes, and we choose one per workload.

1. Azure VMware Solution (AVS) runs VMware as-is on dedicated Azure hosts. It is usually a bridge: it gets you out of a data centre or a provider quickly, but you still license VCF from Broadcom.
2. Azure virtual machines rehost servers with Azure Migrate. This route suits most Windows and Linux servers whose applications have a few more years of life.
3. Containers on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) suit applications that already run in containers or can move with modest change. Windows containers have real limits on AKS: the first system node pool must be Linux, Windows nodes do not support privileged containers, and AKS stopped supporting Windows Server 2019 node pools on 1 March 2026.
4. Modernising the application moves it onto platform services such as Azure SQL Managed Instance or App Service, where you stop managing the operating system.
5. Replacing it with SaaS retires the workload entirely. Dynamics AX 2012 and Dynamics NAV are the clearest UK mid-market examples: AX 2012 R3 left extended support on 10 January 2023, and NAV 2017 extended support ends on 11 January 2027. Our post on AX 2012 and NAV on VMware explains why we replace these with Dynamics 365 rather than rehost them.

How do the routes compare?

One estate often needs several routes. We took an oil and gas company in Scotland, which ran its own VMware infrastructure, off VMware using three of them: its containerised applications moved to SUSE Rancher, its ERP was replaced with Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations, and its other workloads, including the SQL Server estate, moved to Azure platform services rather than just VMs. The oil and gas VMware exit case study describes the project. For a workload-by-workload decision method, read AVS, Azure VMs, containers or rebuild?

What do you need to know about Azure VMware Solution in 2026?

AVS gives you private clouds of VMware vSphere clusters on dedicated bare-metal Azure hosts, with vCenter, vSAN, vSphere and NSX. Microsoft manages the infrastructure and the VMware software lifecycle. Each cluster needs at least 3 hosts and holds at most 16. New deployments currently run vCenter and ESXi 8.0 U3k, NSX 4.2.3.2 and HCX 4.11.4.

You now bring your own VCF subscription

Customers must buy VCF licences directly from Broadcom to use hyperscaler VMware services. New AVS node purchases have not included a VCF licence since 1 November 2025. Microsoft's licensing reference sets these dates:

The 31 October 2026 deadline falls eight days after this guide's publication date. Any AVS customer still on licence-included pay-as-you-go hosts needs a portable VCF subscription registered now.

The subscription must cover every physical core in every host. AV36 and AV36P count as 36 cores, AV48 as 48, AV52 as 52 and AV64 as 64, so a minimum three-node AV64 cluster needs 192 cores of VCF. Microsoft reports BYOL registrations and associated customer data to Broadcom monthly, and it may suspend over-deployed or unregistered private clouds. Three-node AVS trials last 60 days and need a trial VCF key from Broadcom.

Which AVS nodes can you deploy in the UK?

AV48 is not listed in either UK region. Both regions support 7 AV64 fault domains. AVS Generation 2, which deploys private clouds directly into an Azure virtual network and supports only AV64 hosts with vSAN ESA, is available in UK South and UK West.

When will AVS move to VCF 9?

Microsoft has not published an official AVS timeline for VCF 9. A Microsoft Q&A moderator said in June 2026 that upgrading AVS from VMware 8.x is Microsoft's responsibility. Check the AVS release notes before you assume any date.

Our view: AVS is the right tool when you need to leave a building or a provider fast and cannot refactor in time. It is rarely the end state for a mid-market estate, because the VCF subscription still sits on top of the Azure cost.

Which dates should a VMware exit plan work around?

How does a VMware exit project run?

A good exit follows the same sequence whatever the destination. The tools below are Microsoft's, but the steps apply to any target.

1. Discover the estate. Deploy the Azure Migrate appliance against vCenter Server (it supports versions 5.5 to 9.0, but it cannot discover through ESXi hosts directly). One appliance inventories software on up to 10,000 servers through VMware Tools, with no in-guest agents, and maps agentless dependencies for up to 3,000 servers. You can import an RVTools XLSX export (preview) for a quick business case before the appliance goes in. Microsoft added network discovery for VMware and NSX environments (preview) in August 2026, covering subnets, VLANs, NSX segments, load balancers and firewall rules.
2. Assess each workload. Azure Migrate assessments size each server for Azure VMs, platform services or AVS. Microsoft's Reports feature (preview, March 2026) produces executive summaries and TCO views. The Azure Copilot migration agent (preview, March 2026) lets you question the same data in plain language, while the migration itself still runs in the Azure Migrate portal.
3. Choose a route per workload. Use the comparison table above. Record the reason for each decision, because finance and audit will ask for it later.
4. Build the landing zone. Set up identity, networking, policy and cost management in Azure before the first server moves. Network assessments for VMware and NSX (preview, September 2026) help translate existing firewall and segment rules.
5. Migrate in waves. Group servers by dependency, not by host. Azure Migrate's Wave Planning (preview since November 2025) and Auto Wave Planning (preview, September 2026) help. Microsoft recommends agentless replication for VMware, which uses vSphere snapshots and Changed Block Tracking. One appliance replicates up to 300 VMs at once per vCenter, or 500 with a scale-out appliance, and connects to up to 10 vCenter Servers.
6. Test before and after. Record a baseline of how each application behaves before migration, then re-test after it lands, and keep the evidence.
7. Cut over. Run the final sync, switch traffic, and hold the source VMs until the tests pass.
8. Run and optimise. Right-size, apply savings plans and reservations, and decommission what you left behind, including the VMware licences.

Two retirements catch teams out. The classic agent-based replication experience retired fully on 30 September 2026, and agent-based dependency analysis is retired for new onboarding. Old runbooks that rely on either need rewriting.

Why testing deserves its own step

A migration can break things nobody thought to test: a scheduled job, a print queue, a licence server tied to a MAC address, a hard-coded IP address in an integration. We build a UI and regression test baseline before migration, re-run it after cutover and hand over an evidence pack. We use AI agents for that work because they make a full baseline affordable. We already run AI testing for one anonymised client, where every release is AI-tested, including UI testing and Azure DevOps bug verification, and the client released more than 15 testing roles. That is release testing rather than a migration, and the agentic release testing case study describes it. Our post on proving every app still works after a VMware migration and our agentic software delivery page explain the method.

Which licensing levers still help on Azure?

Azure Hybrid Benefit

Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) lets you reuse Windows Server and SQL Server licences in Azure. Windows Server needs core licences with active Software Assurance or qualifying subscription licences. Each VM needs at least 8 core licences, and a processor licence counts as 16 core licences. For SQL Server, AHB covers Azure SQL Database (vCore tiers, not serverless), SQL Managed Instance and SQL Server on Azure VMs, and Microsoft's page also lists AVS and Azure Local as eligible. Microsoft claims savings of up to 80% for Windows Server and up to 85% for SQL Server against pay-as-you-go rates, and notes that actual savings vary. It allows 180 days in which the same licences can run both on-premises and in Azure during migration.

Extended Security Updates: no longer a blanket free pass

Free ESUs on Azure used to be a strong reason to move old servers. That has changed. Microsoft announced on 27 March 2026 that any new ESU offerings from 1 April 2026 carry the same price inside and outside Azure, and that the change does not apply to existing offerings such as Windows Server 2012 ESUs.

Microsoft's AVS ESU page (updated 5 May 2026) still says ESUs are free in Azure, including AVS. The SQL Server ESU FAQ, updated on 19 October 2026, says SQL Server 2016 ESUs are no longer free on Azure VMs or AVS. We plan on the newer SQL Server guidance. A Microsoft Q&A moderator also said in May 2026 that Windows Server ESUs "may involve additional licensing charges" depending on agreement type. Budget for Windows Server 2016 ESUs as a paid item unless Microsoft confirms otherwise for your agreement.

Savings plans and reservations

Azure offers a savings plan for compute and a savings plan for databases. Each is a one-year or three-year hourly spend commitment that does not roll over and cannot be cancelled or refunded. The compute plan covers infrastructure on Azure VMs, App Service and several container services, but not software, networking or storage. The database plan covers Azure SQL Database, SQL Managed Instance and other managed databases, plus hourly SQL Server licences on Azure VMs and Arc.

Reservations give deeper discounts for a specific resource, size and region, and they suit stable workloads. Savings plans suit workloads that will change. We commit only after a wave has settled, because a migration estate changes shape for months. AVS has its own reserved instances, and licence-included AVS reservations must be exchanged for VCF BYOL reservations by 30 August 2027.

What Microsoft funding is available for VMware migrations?

Microsoft announced Azure Accelerate on 7 July 2025. It combined Azure Migrate and Modernize, Azure Innovate and Cloud Accelerate Factory, which provides Microsoft experts to deploy more than 30 Azure services at no extra cost.

For FY27 (1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027), Microsoft's Azure Accelerate page uses the name Frontier Accelerate for Azure. It lists Azure credits, partner engagement funding, funded assessments, a sandbox and Cloud Accelerate Factory, and it names VMware to AVS as a supported scenario. Frontier Accelerate is Microsoft's FY27 umbrella framework, with offerings for Copilot, AI-ready productivity, business processes, Azure, security and Marketplace.

Microsoft partners with the relevant specializations can access partner engagement funding and funded assessments for their customers. Microsoft lists Azure specializations relevant to VMware migrations, including Infra and Database Migration to Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure VMware Solution, and Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure with Azure Stack HCI. Each needs the aligned Solutions Partner designation, performance and skilling requirements, and a passed audit. Microsoft's public pages do not state exactly which specialization a partner needs before it can claim FY27 VMware migration funding.

The partner programme is also moving. Microsoft stopped accepting new Azure Expert MSP applications on 15 September 2026, will stop renewals in January 2027 and recommends the new Frontier Partner specialization instead.

Microsoft introduced the VMware Rapid Migration Plan for AVS in 2024, covering reserved-instance price protection, Azure Hybrid Benefit, free ESUs and partner funding. We could not confirm that its terms still apply in October 2026, and its free ESU element no longer holds for SQL Server 2016. Ask your partner to show you the current programme terms in writing, and treat funding as a bonus to the business case, not its foundation.

What mistakes should you avoid?

Avoid these errors.

• Planning to the renewal date and forgetting 11 October 2027. The renewal is a commercial event; the end of vSphere 8 support is a technical one, and it arrives regardless of what you sign.
• Missing the AVS deadlines. Licence-included pay-as-you-go hosts must be on portable VCF by 31 October 2026, and Microsoft reports registrations to Broadcom monthly.
• Counting AVS cores by VM rather than by host. Every physical core in every node needs VCF, so three AV64 hosts mean 192 cores.
• Assuming ESUs are free because you are moving to Azure. SQL Server 2016 ESUs are paid on Azure, and Microsoft has not said Windows Server 2016 ESUs are free.
• Rehosting software that should retire. Moving AX 2012 to a new hypervisor keeps an unsupported ERP alive on a new bill.
• Treating every workload the same way. A single route for the whole estate usually overpays for some workloads and under-modernises others.
• Skipping dependency mapping. Agentless dependency analysis in Azure Migrate shows which servers talk to each other, so you do not split tightly coupled servers across waves.
• Upgrading a new platform too early. Harvester's own release notes advise against upgrading to v1.9.0 until fixes land in v1.9.1.
• Cutting over without a test baseline. Without one, nobody can prove whether a fault is new or was always there.

Private equity owners face extra timing questions around sales and carve-outs. Our post on VMware exit in PE portfolio companies covers them.

How we approach a VMware exit

Our VMware exit service chooses one of five routes for each workload: AVS as a bridge, Azure VMs, containers on AKS or on SUSE Rancher with SUSE Virtualization, application modernisation, or replacement with SaaS such as Dynamics 365. We use agents to speed up discovery and code analysis, build a cost model against your Broadcom renewal, test every application before and after cutover, and run the estate as a managed service afterwards.

The supporting guides go deeper on each decision:

• AVS, Azure VMs, containers or rebuild? Choosing a route for each VMware workload
• Rancher, Harvester and AKS: running VMs and containers after VMware
• Broadcom renewal vs Azure: how to build an honest VMware exit cost model
• Proving every app still works after a VMware migration
• AX 2012 or NAV on VMware? Replace it, don't rehost it
• VMware exit in PE portfolio companies: opex, carve-outs and timing