Get the Most From Your VMware Investments

Recent licensing changes have transformed the way most organizations consume VMware infrastructure.

The vendor has shifted to longer contracts, with fewer options for scaling down. Customers now pay per physical CPU core, rather than per socket or server. And bundled offerings are now standard, with the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) suite combining vSphere, vSAN, NSX and VMware Aria Suite into a single package.

Some customers have struggled to adapt to these changes, but a few simple, strategic steps can help organizations align their investments to the new normal.

When licensing is inexpensive, organizations tend to let their hardware environments sprawl. It’s easy, after all, to purchase new commodity hardware whenever the need arises, and if licensing costs aren’t burdensome, there’s not much ROI in optimizing every lastå cluster.

New licensing models are changing this calculus, however. With licensing fees now tied to physical CPU cores, scaling out hardware can quickly drive up costs. The solution is simple: Instead of scaling out inexpensive hardware, organizations should opt for density — investing in modern, high-end hardware solutions that will optimize their utilization of VMware licensing.

It’s a question of quality versus quantity. By deploying more powerful machines, organizations can run the same workloads with fewer cores, ultimately limiting their licensing costs.

Inside many IT shops, administrators have been using vCenter for years. The platform has been great for basic tasks such as provisioning new virtual machines, but VMware Aria Suite was a much more powerful management tool, and its functions are now included (as VMware Aria applications) in two VCF bundles: the VMware Cloud Foundation and VMware vSphere Foundation platforms.

With VMware Aria Operations and VMware Aria Automation, for example, administrators can gain deeper visibility into infrastructure performance, automate routine tasks and manage their environments through a unified operational view.

Once upon a time, teams defaulted to vCenter simply because it was what they knew — but that meant they were missing out on automation and cloud-like management. (And remember, they’re now paying for these capabilities through their VCF licenses.) Teams that make the leap to VMware Aria now will bring their on-premises management closer to the modern experience of the public cloud, and they will better position themselves for future developments, such as AI-driven operations.

Many customers are now paying more for their VMware environments, but they’re also receiving more. With that in mind, it’s time for these organizations to carefully look through their other IT investments and eliminate third-party solutions that are now redundant thanks to the expanded capabilities of VCF. 

For instance, the VCF package includes Aria Operations for Logs (formerly vRealize Log Insight), which IT shops can use to filter logs before sending them to external monitoring tools. Those third-party tools typically charge by data volume, so this step can substantially lower licensing costs for monitoring solutions. Similarly, NSX provides built-in networking and security capabilities, including microsegmentation and virtual firewalls. This may allow organizations to retire stand-alone tools that provide similar functionality.

Change can be difficult, and we have found that some customers need help from a trusted partner like CDW as they adjust. But the organizations that quickly embrace and adapt to these shifts will be the ones that thrive in the next era of enterprise IT.