back to article VMware offers cloudy upgrade lifeline to legacy vCenter users

It's not often that a double dot release of a product adds significant functionality, but VMware did just that on Thursday with version 4.4.1 of its Cloud Director Availability product, which adds the ability to migrate aged and unsupported versions of vCenter to the cloud. "Due to various reasons, a considerable number of …

  1. Mayday
    Devil

    Pain incoming

    “ While VMware has given a lifeline to users of the vCenter versions mentioned above, it's also warned more of its customers they have some pain coming.”

    Unless they pay $2m+ to hang around with Broadcom?

    1. StinkyMcStinkFace

      Re: Pain incoming

      The "pain coming" is the work I have to put in to migrate all my servers and services OFF of VMware onto another platform.

      You think you are going to bully us into moving to "the cloud" like MicroSquish is trying to do with Office 359?

      F YOU!

      It was a good ride while it lasted. I'm done with Microsoft and I'm done with VMware.

      I'll drink a toast to your stock plummeting.

  2. thondwe

    |VCentre needs a Cloud to run?

    Have I missed something, or does all this imply that vCenter is going to be a cloud based only solution? If you're the sort of Org that still likes running it's own tin, you'd be the sort of Org than likes the Tin Controller on site too?

    1. jeffty

      Re: |VCentre needs a Cloud to run?

      There are flavours of pre-baked/pre-packaged VMware SDDCs that run on a cloud. VMware Cloud on AWS being one, Azure VMware Solution being another. These all come with their own vCenter and run a vCF-style stack (NSX, vSAN etc). I'd assume it's leveraging one of those prescriptive environments to give customers running the legacy environment an easy lift/shift target.

      Haven't seen anything indicating that vCenter will become cloud only and I can't see them doing away with the on-prem appliance, that would effectively spark an exodus to other hypervisors and solutions.

  3. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Complexity

    Due to various reasons, a considerable number of organisations still rely on legacy

    Plenty of organisations run legacy software simply because it is simple. Every new version becomes overloaded with features that probably most organisations don't need, but they look amazing on the company folders but they always forget to add that complexity brings fragility.

    And they want engineers to service that mess without substantially increasing pay.

    1. Mayday
      Thumb Down

      Re: Complexity

      “Every new version becomes overloaded with features”

      And new versions of certifications which must be updated every 1-3 years for engineers, and partner status to stay current, for no real reason but to sell poorly worded exams filled with spelling, grammatical and technical errors.

      Granted VMware is an exception. I have not needed to renew my VCP-DCV or NV for a while now. I don’t see a personal benefit in the pissing contest in not being called a VCP 2022 just because some other guy has it.

  4. johnnyblaze

    Dream on.

    What about if those customers don't want to move to the cloud and start paying through the nose - in blood? Maybe they're quite happy operating a number of local instances, no matter how old, which are no doubt bulletproof and cheap to operate. Do cloud providers really think everything loves them and are desperate to throw all their workloads into someone else's datacenter? Dream on.

    1. Nate Amsden

      Re: Dream on.

      yeah I can't imagine there being any demand for this sort of ability. If something is that old typically you leave it alone until you are ready to completely replace it. vCenter is almost always a VM, and really the only reason to be running an old vCenter is because you have old ESXi hosts to manage. So even less point of moving such a vCenter to another location away from the hosts.

      Oh I didn't notice they say you can shift old ESXi to cloud. That seems kind of pointless too as the hardware requirements are what they are, really old hardware. Would be messy to try to run it on something much newer. ESX 6.0 for example is certified to run on HPE Gen7 systems, the first of which I got 11 years ago(was running ESX 4.1 originally then ESXi 5.5 then 6.0).

      pointless

  5. Marty McFly Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Reasons....

    "Due to various reasons, a considerable number of organizations still rely on legacy VMware vCenter Server versions....."

    Reasons like.... I already own it. It is not a subscription. I'm not going to get bent over a barrel... Those sorts of reasons.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

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