If your VMware renewal has landed recently and the number surprised you, you are not alone. VMware costs in Ireland have increased significantly following Broadcom’s acquisition of the company, and IT leaders across the country are now trying to work out what their options actually are.
This post explains what has changed, where the costs are coming from, and what practical steps you can take to get your virtualisation spend back under control.
Why VMware costs have increased so sharply
The change comes down to a fundamental restructuring of how VMware licences its software. Under the previous model, organisations could licence individual components such as vSphere and vCenter on a perpetual, per-socket basis. It was modular, scalable and reasonably predictable.
Broadcom has replaced that with a subscription-only, per-core bundled approach built around VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF). Rather than paying for the components you actually use, you now pay for a full-stack bundle regardless of whether you need everything in it. Features that were once standard are locked behind higher subscription tiers.
For many organisations, the result has been a cost increase of two to three times their previous spend with no corresponding improvement in performance or functionality. A TechRadar survey from September 2024 found that more than half of VMware customers were considering moving away from the platform as a direct result.
The costs that go beyond the licence
The licence increase is the most visible part of the problem, but it is not the only one. There are several secondary cost pressures that compound the situation:
- Over-licensing is common in bundled models. If the bundle includes capabilities you are not using, you are paying for them regardless.
- Orphaned virtual machines are another issue. Inactive VMs still consuming physical resources are a drain that often goes unnoticed until a structured audit is carried out.
- Disaster recovery architecture can also inflate your licensing footprint. Secondary site environments are frequently doubling costs unnecessarily.
- Reduced architectural flexibility is a longer-term concern. The new model limits integration with open-source and hybrid tools, which constrains strategic options over time.
A practical audit of your current environment
Before making any decisions about VMware costs, it is worth carrying out a structured review of your current environment. Five areas to examine:
- Utilisation versus licensing: are you paying for more capacity than you are using?
- Orphaned VMs: are there inactive machines still consuming resources?
- DR architecture: is your secondary environment doubling your licensing footprint unnecessarily?
- Unused feature sets: are you now paying for tools that are not deployed?
- Scaling constraints: can you add resources without triggering a full licensing tier uplift?
This kind of audit provides a clear baseline. It also puts you in a stronger position when evaluating vendor proposals or external recommendations.
What your alternatives look like
A wholesale migration away from VMware is not the right answer for every organisation, and it does not need to be. The more practical approach for most Irish IT teams is gradual rebalancing: move less critical workloads first, validate performance, and expand from there.
Tools such as HPE CloudPhysics allow organisations to assess their VM footprint in granular detail, identifying inefficiencies and quantifying potential savings before any migration decision is made.
Platforms such as HPE VM Essentials, supported by Morpheus orchestration, offer a lightweight, hybrid-friendly alternative that can run alongside VMware rather than replacing it outright. For dev and test environments or secondary site infrastructure, this kind of phased approach reduces VMware costs meaningfully without introducing significant risk to production workloads.
The key point is that reducing VMware costs does not require an all-or-nothing decision. Most organisations find that a structured, phased rebalancing of their virtualisation environment delivers substantial savings while keeping risk manageable.
Where to start
If your renewal has landed and the number is higher than expected, the starting point is clarity: a clear picture of what you are actually using, what you are paying for and what the alternatives look like for your specific environment.
Datapac’s infrastructure team works with Irish organisations on exactly this. If you would like a second opinion on your current VMware environment or want to explore your options, get in touch at info@datapac.com or call 01 426 3555.
If your VMware renewal has landed recently and the number surprised you, you are not alone. VMware costs in Ireland have increased significantly following Broadcom’s acquisition of the company, and IT leaders across the country are now trying to work out what their options actually are.