Dell kills sweetheart distribution deal with Broadcom's VMware

Dell has terminated its distribution deal for VMware products. A regulatory filing in the US today reveals Dell has written to Broadcom terminating a "commercial framework agreement" forged in November 2021 between Dell and VMware, which is now owned by Broadcom. That agreement was struck on the same day Dell and VMware …

[Nate Amsden]

Puts a lot more pressure on VMware's tech support team(s)

At least with HPE, and I assume Dell and probably others, when you bought VMware through them they typically provided the tier 1 & 2 vmware support (at least for hypervisor+vCenter can't speak to other products), they could escalate to VMware's team as well if needed. (though have heard in general all of them are pretty terrible across the board for support quality).

Fortunately haven't really needed their support in a long time(only have had one serious support incident to me with VMware in the past 17 years of using ESXi, when a windows based vCenter corrupted itself(OS level corruption, though the DB was in Oracle on a Linux system and was unaffected) and I was just looking for the best way to recover out of paranoia, in the end the recovery was simple(reinstall new OS, new vCenter, point at existing DB) just took support a week to communicate it properly, didn't know if doing that would cause the hosts to freak out or not and in the end hosts didn't care as I assumed they wouldn't but wasn't 100% sure), keep configs simple and years behind the curve means less problems(and less headaches dealing with support).

But it sounds like Broadcom already terminated the deal by saying Dell (and HPE and others) can't resell their stuff. Not as if it being a subscription has anything to do with it, Dell I'm sure resells subscriptions to lots of things, tons on the Microsoft side at least. Will be interesting to see the fallout over the year, I'm assuming it will be pretty big, but time will tell of course.

[Snake]

Re: Puts a lot more pressure on VMware's tech support team(s)

"At least with HPE, and I assume Dell and probably others, when you bought VMware through them they typically provided the tier 1 & 2 vmware support"

Which is exactly what I suspected, thank you for that information. I figured that an OEM selling the bundled VMWare product would provide a one-stop support for both hardware and software and that this would certainly be a good selling point for many potential customers. With Broadcom refusing OEM licensing they, therefore, also unbundled after-sale single-source support, and certainly some customers (probably smaller businesses without existing first-grade in-house tech support abilities) would need to reconsider their plans.

tl;dr: fallout continues on Broadcom's self-defenstration. Nice job guys!

[-v(o.o)v-]

Re: Puts a lot more pressure on VMware's tech support team(s)

No it won't put, as it's clear the strategy is to get rid of all the minor license customer and only sell to high value customers.

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Does this mean Dell won't sell systems with VMware already installed, and maybe won't even certify systems to work with VMware products specifically? Or are they just going to end up working out some other sort of agreement so that Dell will continue to do those things BUT not have to pay any money to do it since they're not earning anything on licensing, and as mentioned by another user, probably provide zero support, and terminating the agreement so forcefully is just kind of a way to slap Broadcom's wrists so they understand that VMware needs Dell more than Dell needs VMware?

[Nate Amsden]

When I checked the Dell website about a week or two ago, the only VMware options was they would install the hypervisor without a license if you wanted, couldn't sell you a license. And for HPE, I found one link to the HPE version of VMware, but when clicking on the link gave me a 404. HPE still listed VMware as compatible but the data sheet I looked at did not list any Vmware software that could be purchased. Which is when I dug deeper and came across this (https://nandresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/NAND-Impact-of-VMware-Subscription-Changes-1.pdf) which was super informative. I thought I knew what I needed to know by reading El Reg but these specific details escaped me until I saw the PDF. I had been assuming, till that point that the bundling was specific to the cloud product suites(and even at the time I looked at VMware's own store and they were still selling vSphere and vCenter, however they no longer have those products on their store now).

I have no doubt all vendors will continue to certify/support with VMware as long as there is a market demand for it.

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Would it be legal to include ESXi without a paid license on a system that doesn't meet the requirements for free licensing? I suppose in pretty much any normal purchase (meaning where you don't get assigned a Dell rep because it's going to be so expensive) the requirements won't be exceeded, so free licensing applies, since the only common limit is 2 CPUs. I don't have access to a reseller portal now to see what I could spec out, but Dell's available listings for servers that have 4 sockets only show systems with 2 CPUs in them, and having 3/4 CPUs installed is a customization option but can't be selected, and with only 2 CPUs you can only get 8TB of RAM which is half the limit for a free license as well. Maybe until they've hacked out new terms with VMware to allow them to include paid licensing, they won't sell systems with ESXi pre-installed that include more CPUs or RAM than is allowed with free licensing.

[Nate Amsden]

historically esxi came by default with a 60 (or maybe 30) day eval license with all features unlocked, so shouldn't be an issue. Now maybe Broadcom may forbid any distribution of it for whatever reason these days, but as of yesterday Dell was still offering esxi (no license included) as an option when ordering a server.

then if the customer likes what they see in the eval license they can go buy the real thing..

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Like I said, the systems I could find for ordering were limited to configurations that would qualify for a free license, so that may fall under permitted pre-installation (though they still have to have permission to distribute it, so they must have some sort of agreement still in place; I don't think I could start assembling computers and include ESXi pre-installed even if it will be used with a free license). But I'd bet that they aren't allowed to distribute it pre-installed on any system that doesn't qualify for a free license, since now they can't SELL a license. Of course I assume the software won't work if you try to start it on bigger hardware and don't enter license information.

It doesn't entirely explain why you can't configure a system with 3/4 CPUs and more RAM, since you can obviously choose an operating system other than ESXi which would work with those options. Normally their system would just flag the hardware that isn't permitted if one of your selections is not compatible, but removing the option was a quick way to prevent trying to create those combinations since this was a sudden cut-off and they need to recreate the listings to take the limits into account.

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, I'll bite

Other than the usual issues of the pain & expense to switch, why would anyone stick with VMware rather than migrate to a FOSS solution? And for new VM's going forward, use a FOSS solution?

[Snake]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Because the C-suite would want the guarantee of someone else being liable for failures. Unless the FOSS solutions is being sold by some sort of supplier with included or available tech support, who is responsible at legal sue-you level when the system goes down? Having a support contract that guarantees a certain level of service response can also help indemnify against economic loss - you can hopefully blame someone else :p

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: OK, I'll bite

So why doesn't Dell just switch to embedding XEN in its servers instead of VMware?

I buy a Dell server, there is a web GUI to spin up and manage a VM. Unless I'm an expert and doing low level tinkering I don't care how it works. If I am a VMware expert then I'm not relying on Dell anyway.

Dell can save money on paying for VMware and pass the saving on to my C-suite (sniggers)

[Ribfeast]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Because Xen has been dead for at least 10 years.

[elip]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Citrix XenServer continues to be updated...though why anyone would want this piece of shit instead of using KVM I do not know.

[Nate Amsden]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Dell will sell you servers with Windows data center preinstalled (unlimited VMs), as well as Red Hat/Ubuntu/SuSE(all 3 are subscription based). I don't see an option for the "free" HyperV (assuming that is still around) to come preinstalled anyway. I suspect HPE is the same though Dell's site is easier to navigate to find what options are available.

There's obviously not much market demand for Xen or even KVM as a hypervisor for typical Dell customers (the ones that want it will install it themselves), or they'd offer those. Red Hat has a formal KVM-based virtualization offering(which I do not see listed as able to purchase along with a Dell server), and SuSE/Ubuntu have KVM as well, Ubuntu has put extra effort into LXC/LXD as well I think (I first started using LXC back in 2014 still use it today).

Those more hard core on the open source end of things will just do it themselves regardless.When I bought HPE servers with VMware licensing they never came preinstalled, just had the license, which HP then synchronized to VMware's license portal so it was all in one place. All of my critical VMware systems are boot from SAN anyway with no local storage so they wouldn't of been able to install anyway (though some early systems were mistakenly shipped with SD cards with VMware pre-installed which caused confusion for me years later until I figured that out and removed the cards).

Not sure what may happen(unless it happened already) to the "free" ESXi licenses, which were a bit limited but still handy for things (I use them on a couple personal servers at a colo, no need for vmotion/etc).

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Hyper-V Server 2019 is the last version that will exist so nobody's going to pre-install that anymore, and mainstream support for it just ended recently so installing it yourself now isn't the greatest idea for production systems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hyper-V is NOT going away | was Re: OK, I'll bite

ummm...no.

Mainstream support of Hyper-V Server 2019 *free edition* ended 9 Jan 2024 but -- today -- Microsoft will be supporting Hyper-V until *at least 13th Oct 2031*.

Why? That's the extended end date for support of Windows Server 2022 (see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/windows-server-2022).

Why else? Hyper-V underpins Azure and X-Box among other things.

Add to that, Windows Server 2025 is coming soon (I'm told).

[elip]

Re: OK, I'll bite

There are literally hundreds of different organizations that sell support services for all sorts of open source software.

[biddibiddibiddibiddi]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Selling third-party support for free software is not the same as becoming liable for problems with that software.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: OK, I'll bite

If you don't want to lose functionality you'd probably want something like Proxmox or OpenStack. Neither of those have any compliance certification whatsoever. If you do business with any publicly traded companies, the government, healthcare orgs, or financial institutions the additional audit-related expenses could be rather shocking. Since you cannot rely on the vendor's (very expensive) certification you will need to test each release yourself at a minimum to confirm everything works as expected. This pretty much ends the conversation for large orgs. You'll also have a harder time hiring talent familiar with your tooling which doesn't help matters either. In smaller orgs that usually means becoming completely dependent on one or two unicorn admins who might take months to replace. I like FOSS tools and I think they have a place in production sometimes, but lawyers and accountants are touchy about such things for good reason.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: OK, I'll bite

A lot of the middle players seem okay in the hyperconverged world, but if you use enterprise SAN and need a certified solution with support VMware still seems to be the king. Nobody else except maybe RHEL/KVM seems to have the SAN support or reliability VMware has.

[-v(o.o)v-]

Re: OK, I'll bite

Which FOSS solution is as integrated and good in orchestration for hundreds to thousand of physical machines?

Such a thing doesn't exist even as a commercial offering.

There's hypervisors but nothing comes close to the central management features of vSphere.

[James Pond]

Re: OK, I'll bite

I want to point out Openstack.

[NoneSuch]

Don't care if ESXi is installed when I buy the Dell system.

I care that ESXi will be 100% compatible with the Dell hardware when I install it.

[tomeh]

Re: Don't care if ESXi is installed when I buy the Dell system.

This. Also having custom Dell ESXi images is very handy.

[Nate Amsden]

Re: Don't care if ESXi is installed when I buy the Dell system.

You might care if you will be forced to pay for(and support fees) Tanzu, vSAN, and Aria Suite (the new "Operations Manager" I think?) for those Dell systems whether or not you ever plan to use those features, and per core licensing on annual subscription (which I assume means if you don't pay the subscription the software stops working), as VMware no longer sells ESXi as a standalone product(perpetual or subscription).

[amacater]

Run, don't walk away from VMWare

if you're not on Broadcom's list of highest paying customers - you're a nobody. Restricting resellers really doesn't help endear you. If proxmox doesn't have certifications and Dell were to throw its entire weight behind getting certifications to help proxmox? Broadcom make some good chips - and some really *annoying* chips - but they've no need, interest or use for VMWare except as a cash cow from the richest customers.

If your staff can't adapt to using a virtualisation interface that's different - retrain or fire your staff - it's not rocket science ...