The acquisition of VMware by Broadcom in 2022 has brought about an enormous shift to the way customer’s VMware devices will be managed, with much discontent centred around potential rising costs of its new pricing model, and persistent on premises infrastructure expenses.

Since the announcement, many companies have already begun taking action. Computershare which manages data for 40,000 companies and 75 million individual customers announced it had migrated 24,000 virtual machines onto Nutanix AHV, after the news that its VM software fees would increase up to 15 times. Others include Sydney’s Macquarie University and Gold Coast’s Bond University, who also recently outlined their efforts to exit a VMware environment.

Chris Fleischman, General Manager of Cloud solutions and services at NRI ANZ says “Many organisations are impacted by the new changes to VMWare licensing, with budgetary restrained sectors such as education and healthcare at a particular disadvantage.

For NRI customers, we are helping them understand what’s running under their VMWare estate, with the first step being to identify which underutilised licenses can be eliminated; which are compliant and cannot be deemed as misaligned by a Broadcom audit; and giving them a comprehensive benchmark as to how they should respond in the months and years to come,” says Chris.

One of NRI’s recommendations to avoid the immediate risk of cost escalations is Oracle Cloud’s VMware Solution (OCVS). Under this solution offering which promotes a quick and easy shift of workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle promises stable VMware licensing costs until 2030.

OCVS is the only cloud offering providing full administrative control over VMware environments, mirroring on premises setups, and serves as an extension of existing on premises systems, enabling migration at your pace —whether fast or slow.

OCVS doubles as disaster recovery for both on premises and hybrid configurations, enhancing resilience. From a VMware perspective, it’s the simplest lift-and-shift to any cloud, requiring minimal adjustment.

Beyond cost and ease, OCVS ensures control and scalability. With full oversight of VMware and Oracle Database environments, application customisations and database compatibility are preserved.

Chris says, “Oracle OCI’s scalability shines for organisations with fluctuating compute and storage needs, helping them counter VMware’s price surge with a flexible, controlled, and scalable path forward, making it a strategic choice for businesses navigating this shift.”