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VMware End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services

Editorial Note: This blog post updates and replaces the original KB article (KB 96168) published on January 15, 2024. The intent is to bring further clarity to some of the communications contained in the original article related to the End of Availability of certain VMware offerings. We are also clarifying how customers can continue to acquire solutions they are currently using if a standalone SKU for their product has reached End of Availability. We appreciate our customers and partners who shared their input on the communications to help us bring more clarity to this topic. Thank you.

As announced on December 11, 2023, VMware reached a new milestone in its journey over the last two years to streamline and simplify its portfolio and transition from perpetual licensing to a subscription model. VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation, available as subscription software only, are now our two new offers. We also offer optional advanced add-ons which can be used with these solutions. 

As an outcome of this portfolio simplification, many VMware software solutions will only be offered as part of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) or VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). They will not be available for purchase as standalone point solutions. 

In the interest of clarity, presented below is a recap of the changes we have brought to our portfolio:

  • VMware Cloud Foundation is VMware’s new solution for customers looking to capture the value of full stack infrastructure with a platform that offers vSphere, vSAN and NSX with the full Aria management and orchestration suite with new services included.
  • VMware vSphere Foundation is VMware’s solution for data center optimization in traditional vSphere environments. It includes Tanzu Kubernetes Grid in addition to Aria Operations and Aria Operations for Logs as part of its standard suite of features. Additionally, customers with lighter requirements such as basic hardware consolidation or virtualization on a very small number of servers can still purchase subscriptions to vSphere Standard and vSphere Essentials Plus Kit.
  • VMware add-on services are available for VMware vSphere Foundation and VMware Cloud Foundation to further enhance the customer journey and address additional storage, security, disaster recovery, Generative AI and other specific use cases.

This portfolio simplification will allow customers to extract more value from their VMware investment, and enable VMware to accelerate delivery of new innovations and ease both deployment and management for customers.

Additionally, VMware by Broadcom also plans to offer “Bring Your Own License” capability that will allow customers to purchase subscriptions of VMware Cloud Foundation from Broadcom and flexibly deploy those subscriptions to VMware validated hybrid cloud endpoints, as well as their own on-prem data centers. 

The other outcome of this transition is that the products listed in the table below are now at End of Availability (EOA) as standalone offers. Some offerings may still be available for consumption as part of VMware Cloud Foundation or VMware vSphere Foundation offers, which we have noted.

As detailed in this blog, VMware is also announcing EoA of the Aria SaaS services, but will continue to support those customers currently using Aria SaaS services until the end of their subscription term.  At the end of the subscription term, customers will need to transition to either VCF or VVF.  Also note that Aria SaaS Services are in maintenance mode, meaning no new features will be published, although security and critical updates will be provided during the active subscription period.

This announcement encompasses all licensing options, including Perpetual, Support & Subscription (SnS), SaaS/hosted and other subscription types. It also covers every edition, suite, and pricing metric for each product including affected academic SKUs. Any exception to this coverage will be specified separately.

Products no longer available as standalone (all editions and pricing metrics)Replacement Product Included in VCF/VVF/Add-on?
(Y/N)
Which Product or Add-On? 
VMware vSphere Enterprise PlusYVCF, VVF
VMware vSphere+N 
VMware vSphere EnterpriseN 
VMware vSphere Standard (excluding subscription)YReplaced with new vSphere Standard 
VMware vSphere ROBON 
VMware vSphere Scale Out 
VMware vSphere DesktopN 
VMware vSphere Acceleration KitsN 
VMware vSphere Essentials KitN
VMware vSphere Essentials Plus (excluding new subscription offering)YReplaced with vSphere Essentials Plus Kit
VMware vSphere Starter/FoundationN 
VMware vSphere with Operations ManagementN 
VMware vSphere BasicN 
VMware vSphere AdvancedN 
VMware vSphere Storage ApplianceN 
VMware vSphere Hypervisor (free edition)N 
VMware Cloud Foundation/VCF+/VCF-S (excluding new VCF subscription offering)N Replaced with VMware Cloud Foundation (new)
VMware Cloud Foundation for VDIN 
VMware Cloud Foundation for ROBON 
VMware SDDC ManagerYVCF 
VMware vCenter StandardYVCF, VVF and vSphere STD 
VMware vCenter FoundationN 
VMware vSANVCF, VVF, vSAN add-on 
VMware vSAN ROBON 
VMware vSAN DesktopN 
VMware vSAN+N 
VMware HCI KitN 
VMware Site Recovery ManagerYSRM Add-On Service
VMware Cloud Editions/Cloud PacksNReplaced with VCF, VVF
VMware vCloud SuiteNReplaced with VCF, VVF
VMware Aria Suite (formerly vRealize Suite)YVCF, VVF
VMware Aria Universal Suite (formerly vRealize Cloud Universal)N 
VMware Aria Suite TermYVCF, VVF
VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight)YVCF 
VMWare Aria Operations for Networks Universal (formerly vRealize Network Insight Universal)N 
VMware vRealize Network Insight ROBON 
VMWare Aria Operations for Logs (formerly vRealize Log Insight)YVVF, VCF 
VMware vRealize Operations 8 Application Monitoring Add-OnN 
VMware Aria OperationsYVVF, VCF 
VMware Aria AutomationYVCF 
VMware Aria Suite Cloud for US Public SectorN
VMware Aria Automation for Secure Hosts add-on (formerly SaltStack SecOps)Tanzu Guardrails Add-On 
VMware vRealize Automation SaltStack SecOps add-onYTanzu Guardrails Add-On 
VMware Aria Operations for Integrations (formerly vRealize True Visibility Suite)YVCF, VVF
VMware Cloud DirectorYVCF (CSP only)
VMware Cloud Director ServiceN 
VMware NSXYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX for DesktopYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP) 
VMware NSX ROBOYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP) 
VMware NSX Distributed FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall
VMware NSX Gateway FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall
VMware NSX Threat Prevention to Distributed FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware NSX Threat Prevention to Gateway FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP) 
VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention to Distributed FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP) 
VMware NSX Advanced Threat Prevention to Gateway FirewallYVCF and VMware Firewall (with ATP)
VMware Advanced Load Balancer YVMware Avi Load Balancer Add-On (also standalone)
VMware Container Networking Enterprise with AntreaVCF and VMware Firewall 
VMware HCXYVCF 
VMware HCX+N 
Tanzu Kubernetes Grid (vSphere with Tanzu) **YVVF and VCF
**added to grid on 6/25 but was EOA at time of blog publication

Next Steps

If you are an existing customer and purchased the above End of Availability products, but are not up for renewal there is no immediate action required at this time. VMware will continue to offer active support through the duration of your support contract. In the future, at the time of renewal, you can work with your VMware representative or VMware partner to align your go forward requirements to VMware’s updated portfolio of offerings.

For additional details surrounding this, please reach out to your VMware Account team and Sales Representative.