General Support for VMware vSphere 7 ends on October 2, 2025. (See the VCF Product Lifecycle Matrix for details.) SAP customers still on vSphere 7 should begin planning a migration to vSphere 8 which has SAP support as described below, or to the newest VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 (VCF 9.0) which will gain SAP support later this year.
While vSphere 7 provided support for SAP HANA on Haswell, Broadwell, and Skylake CPUs, these older processors are not supported on vSphere 8 due to CPU deprecation and/or discontinuation.
Newer CPUs are fully supported with SAP HANA on vSphere 8, enabling a relatively straightforward upgrade from vSphere 7 by simply updating the virtual infrastructure components (e.g., vCenter and ESXi) to version 8 and migrating and updating the VM (virtual HW version and adjustments if the host configuration changed) to an upgraded host.
vSphere 8, which is fully supported for SAP HANA on Cascade Lake and newer Intel CPUs, will be supported until October 2027, with an optional two-year Extended Support period available for purchase.
Broadcom’s current plan is to validate all SAP HANA relevant CPU generations starting with Cascade Lake (with the latest being Granite Rapids CPUs) on VMware Cloud Foundation 9. This would allow you to adopt either vSphere/vSAN 8 or VCF 9 at your own pace.
This flexibility allows you to maintain and operate your existing or new Granite Rapids SAP HANA on VCF environment until the planned end of support for VCF 9 in 2031.
This means for you, that costs and service interruptions are minimized, and your existing hardware investments are protected.
Call to Action!
- Assess current hardware: Verify CPU generation and which vSphere version provides SAP HANA support for these CPUs.
- Review the Broadcom Compatibility Guide: Check whether your Cascade Lake–based system is certified for vSphere 8 or VCF 9. Link.
- Reach out to your HW vendor: If your system is not listed, note that some vendors have not yet recertified their Cascade Lake–based systems. In such cases, we advise you to reach out to your HW vendor directly and request that your specific server model be recertified for VCF 9.
- Choose a target platform: vSphere 8 for a straightforward uplift, or VCF 9 for a full private‑cloud foundation and support until 2031.
- Plan downtime: Schedule brief outages for VM hardware upgrades and configuration alignments to adopt new server hardware if required.
- Review resources:
- SAP HANA on vSphere Validation & Support Roadmap (SAP help portal)
- Blog: VMware Cloud Foundation 9 Ushers In New Support Model and Release Cadence
- VCF Product Lifecycle Matrix
- Review the Broadcom Compatibility Guide
- VM virtual hardware versions
- SAP HANA Best Practices Guide
- Relevant SAP support notes
The table below outlines the current and planned SAP HANA on VCF support status; see also SAP help portal for this information.
Act now to ensure your VMware virtualized SAP landscapes remain fully supported and ready for the future!
