VMware: Still a Winning Bet (Even if You’re Frustrated)

In all fairness, we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room.  Dell’s sale of VMware to Broadcom and the subsequent changes have left VMware customers feeling, at best, squeezed and frustrated.  We totally get it.  It’s been a rocky few months navigating changes.  It’s no surprise that some folks are looking at alternatives.  Hypervisors that come bundled into or as a feature of an existing operating system, represent an appealing alternative. If it’s already there and the upfront cost seems low, it is easy to wonder if it could be “good enough”.  Here is the problem: The low upfront price tag comes with tradeoffs, which may turn into bigger costs and risks down the road. WTG asserts that VMware remains a strong and great long-term choice.  Here are five reasons why:

1. Support: Some hypervisors which are bundled or available as a feature do not come with a support agreement. With VMware, and some others, support is part of the deal. You know what you are getting, you know who to call, and you know you can document support compliance when the auditors show up. If you choose another hypervisor and something breaks, you either pay by the incident or need to buy an additional (possibly expensive) support agreement. That might be fine for side projects, but in enterprise environments it adds cost and risk quickly. Some organizations can’t even run ‘unsupported’ software because of compliance requirements. What is the cost to the business when you’re fumbling with a credit card to open an incident and waiting 2-3 days for a call back? What if it’s email-only support? Predictability matters, especially in a “time of need”.
2. Platform Stability: VMware ESXi does not lean on general-purpose drivers, which are usually provided by OEMs. General-purpose drivers work, but they are not optimized for virtualization and can introduce extra overhead, compatibility issues, and potential instability. VMware uses small, purpose-built kernel modules designed for its hypervisor. They are tuned for performance and stability, which means fewer surprises, smoother operations, and enhanced performance.
3. Security: VMware ESXi was built differently than some other hypervisors. It is a dedicated hypervisor with a slim footprint. Less code and fewer services running means fewer vulnerabilities to patch, and fewer ways for attackers to get in. When your hypervisor sits on top of a fully featured, general-purpose OS, you inherit the entire attack surface of a general-purpose operating system. That is a lot of moving parts to keep secure.  Hardening sometimes leads to systems that don’t function as designed and it’s extra work to track and maintain non-default configuration changes. As opposed to some other options, VMware ESXi is not generally joined to an Active Directory Domain and if it is, it’s for authentication not authentication and management. That means vSphere ESXi may be less prone to AD-sourced security incidents.
4. Management: VMware vCenter takes a straightforward approach to management. It gives you one place to manage, monitor, and automate your environment. The interface is intuitive, the APIs are well supported, and it scales cleanly from a few hosts to enterprise-wide deployments.  vCenter is one of VMware’s original and great “claims to fame” – one of the most powerful “features”, an unsung hero, in the VMware VCF stack.  Some other options may give you a similar feel, but may not have the depth of API integration that you’re already accustomed to.  Going further, managing an OEM non-vSphere hypervisor may involve a mix of other tools such as System Center, PowerShell, maybe some third-party scripts. The tools can get the job done, but it often lacks true integration and feels clunky.
5. Enterprise-Grade Hybrid Cloud: VMware has been delivering enterprise-grade virtualization for decades. It is stable, widely trusted, and designed to handle demanding workloads. On top of that, VMware vCloud Foundation (VCF) includes storage with vSAN, Kubernetes with Tanzu, operations management with Aria, native AI-services, advanced network security with NSX, and extensive specialized hardware integration with NVIDIA and more (not just for GPU!). VCF is not just a hypervisor, it is a platform that can grow with your needs, whether that is AI workloads, cloud-native/container apps, or simply running business-critical systems reliably.

At WTG, we get it – VMware customers are still frustrated, and alternatives are tempting if you focus only on upfront cost (and sometimes the alternatives are fine too). That said, if VMware has been a reliable and stable operating environment in your data center for the past decade or longer, that track record matters. It means your teams know the platform, processes are already built around it, and you are not throwing away years of learned knowledge and time-tested runtime just to shave costs. Broadcom, for its part, has a long history of running stable, successful businesses.

VMware by Broadcom remains one of the most dependable operating environments available today, and it continues to deliver what most organizations actually need: consistent support, purpose-built technology, a smaller and more secure attack surface, easier management, and a platform that will still be relevant ten years from now. For organizations that do not want to gamble on their infrastructure, VMware (even under Broadcom) is still a smart and safe choice. WTG is a Premier Tier VMware by Broadcom partner with several on-staff VMware-certified resources including a VCDX, VCAPs, VCPs, and specialized certifications in technology, sales, and operations.  We are able to transact core license / renewal business, provide architecture and design, deliver expert professional project services and expert on-going co-managed services.