No need to fear it! Revolutions are revolutionary. And they are always necessary for progress—in virtualization and in life.

Nay to fear, compatriots, as today is a day for courage. Today, we do not make incremental improvements nor routine product updates, today, we dive in to the subject of VCF 9.0—a true paradigm shift in virtualization itself. For the millions of businesses running VMware infrastructure, the ground has moved—literally and figuratively—towards the future, and towards democratization. With the evolution of VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), customers must rethink how they operate, migrate, and modernize. And at OVHcloud, we’re armed and ready to face any opposition.

In fact, we’ve been ready. For over 15 years, OVHcloud has partnered with VMware to deliver high-performance, secure, and trusted cloud solutions to organizations across Europe and beyond. And now, as VMware undergoes one of its biggest transformations in history under Broadcom, OVHcloud is delivering new offers to help customers migrate at scale from A to Z—with a radically simplified stack, transparent pricing, and a uniquely open model. This means that we are ready to arm you for revolution too: after all, to win any battle, we need our allies.

This isn’t just about a product launch. It’s an entire virtualization ecosystem rebooted: new hardware, new software stack, and a modernized architecture that enables organizations to go from bare metal to full workload deployment in around an hour—and not six months, as it once was. Challenging? Yes. Worth it? Without a doubt. Time to suit up and move the troops forward—towards the freedom of the future.

How the field of tech changing—and why it matters

For years, VMware’s legacy architecture required extensive technical know-how and costly certifications. Networking, storage, security—each a specialized field. And provisioning a datacenter? Painfully slow. In contrast, the new era of virtualization is about convergence, automation, and accessibility. VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 was created to democratize access to modern infrastructure. This revolution is to designed benefit the masses!

And this tech change isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about empowering teams to focus on innovation rather than orchestration. With OVHcloud’s support, our customers can now simplify operations, reduce vendor lock-in, and build future-ready infrastructure.

VCF: empowering migration at scale

At the heart of this revolutionary transformation lies VMware Cloud Foundation, the cornerstone of Broadcom’s new strategy. VCF offers a unified, full-stack platform that integrates compute, storage, networking, and management to simplify operations and accelerate digital transformation for small or large enterprises, and their partners.

But while the technology enables unprecedented agility and automation, recent licensing changes have introduced significant challenges for smaller deployments. OVHcloud responded by offering flexible solutions on shared hardware, preserving the accessibility and performance of VMware while optimizing cost efficiency for all.

Yann Meguira, VMware Product Unit Director at OVHcloud, explains:

“Broadcom’s new pricing policy imposes a minimum of 16 cores per license, which makes all small hosts unviable from a price-performance perspective. Our long-term strategy at OVHcloud has been to protect our customers. We therefore wanted to develop an offer on shared hardware to enable customers who wish to continue benefiting from the power of VMware with extremely competitive costs.”

OVHcloud: your trusted VMware partner and ally

We’ve supported organizations of all sizes through their cloud journey—from large enterprises to smaller actors—allowing them to benefit from solutions starting at just €299/month (launch pricing until June 2026). The new Public VCF as-a-Service offerhelps to democratize what was once accessible to only the biggest, strongest players. And to simplify a transition that can be complex, OVHcloud offers VMware ESXi Images, easing deployment and adoption for our bare metal servers.

And OVHcloud ensures full data sovereignty through SecNumCloud, C5, HDS, PCI-DSS and other industry-leading certifications; in fact, in 2020, we were named Leader of Hosted Private Cloud in Europe by Forrester. In 2024, VMware recognized us as Pinnacle Partner and CSP of the Year. Trust is integral when forming an alliance.

Our dedication to the cause goes beyond tech. As a trusted name in tech, OVHcloud builds its own servers and maintains strict control over infrastructure, all this while conserving both energy and costs with our patented water-cooling technology.

Fighting the good fight

Unlike our competitors in the field, we believe in contractual transparency and the freedom to cancel your contract. That means: no hidden fees, no surprise price hikes, and support for our customers’ existing agreements—even through big shifts like the VCF migration. And for those ready to embrace the future? We reward pre-commitment to our new stack with early access, pilot testing, and optimized pricing—currently underway with around 100 strategic partners.

The result? A future-ready, sustainable, sovereign infrastructure that empowers businesses to innovate securely, without compromise. We have your back, and we keep our promises. How’s that for a reliable ally?

A strategic alliance, built to last

Few partnerships in the cloud ecosystem have lasted and evolved with as much resilience and shared innovation as the one between VMware and OVHcloud. Keeping our friends close, we have enjoyed more than 25 years of VMware innovation and 15+ years of joint momentum, continuously delivering solutions of scalability, sovereignty, and simplicity.

This long-term commitment has led to key milestones in our history:

• 2011: Launch of OVHcloud’s Hosted Private Cloud
• 2017: Acquisition of VMware vCloud Air
• 2020: OVHcloud named Leader of Hosted Private Cloud in the EU by Forrester
• 2021: SecNumCloud qualification added to a growing list of certifications
• 2024: Recognized as Pinnacle Partner and Cloud Service Provider (CSP) of the Year in Europe
• 2025: Launch of first VCF-based offer Public VCF as-a-Service

A recognized leader in technology and trust

Our VMware-based solutions are awarded by the powers that be, and trusted by enterprises and public organizations alike:

• Certifications: SecNumCloud, C5, G-Cloud, Agid, HDS, PCI-DSS
• Awards: VMware Cloud Verified, Sovereign Cloud, and Zero Carbon Committed Partner
• A presence that spans Europe, North America, and strategic markets worldwide

Two strategies, one seamless experience

To be prepared for any circumstance, OVHcloud has designed a comprehensive portfolio of Managed VMware solutions:

• Public VCF as-a-Service (Ideal for small and medium customers)

• Entry-level VMware Cloud Foundation at €299/month
• Shared infrastructure, fully managed
• Perfect for development, test environments, or smaller production workloads
• Fast deployment and easy scaling

• Managed VMware vSphere (Ideal for large, regulated, or demanding workloads)

• Dedicated infrastructure with the highest certified cloud offers
• Built-in hyperconvergence, NSX networking, and enterprise monitoring
• Fully compliant (SecNumCloud, ISO, GDPR) and backed by 24/7 support
• Used by governments and large enterprises for secure cloud operations
• Provides professional services and solution architects to build the perfect combination of OVHcloud services

• Private VCF as-a-Service (Coming soon)

• The next generation of Managed VMware vSphere based on VCF 9
• Support for BYOS/BYOL to enable migration of VCF licenses to OVHcloud
• Will exist as a managed stretched cluster on 3-AZ (already in alpha) for business critical workloads
• All the best of OVHcloud expertise on the modern foundations of VCF 9

Access to all OVHcloud’s product portfolio and services

It’s not just a cloud—it’s the cloud of the future

The cloud we’re building is about more than preparation or infrastructure. It’s about empowering transformation for the betterment of us all:

• Dramatically shorter deployment times (from months to hours)
• Full-stack automation and simplified management
• A clear, sustainable Green IT roadmap with 0.20T CO₂e/MWh carbon usage in 2022

This is a new foundation that bolsters the enterprise cloud. Built to support digital sovereignty, environmental goals, and business agility, without compromise on cost or control.

VMware may have changed the rules of tech history—but with OVHcloud, you can now choose how you approach the future. 

Encouraging migration without the battle wounds

We know that migration means more than just moving workloads. It requires retraining teams, rethinking architectures, realigning budgets and maybe losing some good people along the way. That’s why we’ve:

• Simplified the stack
• Kept our lock-in policies
• Adjusted our offer and hardware to conserve the best price/performance ration within the new licensing rules
• Provided professional services and solution architects to build the perfect combination of OVHcloud services

We’re encouraging organizations to make revolutionary leap right now, because the future is already here—waiting for you to grab the horns.

Time to rally the troops

The world of virtualization is changing fast, and it’s not slowing down. With Broadcom reshaping how VMware is delivered and licensed, and with new solutions like VMware Cloud Foundation 5.2 and 9.0 becoming the new standard, the path forward is clear: it’s time to modernize, simplify, and migratetoday.

At OVHcloud, we’ve anticipated this shift. We’ve designed a full-stack, sovereign, and sustainable cloud, purpose-built for organizations who want freedom, transparency, and performance without breaking the bank (or the SLA). Whether you’re a small business looking for a solid entry point or an enterprise needing certified infrastructure and 24/7 expertise, we’ve got your back in this fight!

Because let’s face it. When you’re in the trenches, migration can feel complex. So, we’ve removed the barriers to allow for a fair battle:

✔️ Transparent pricing
✔️ No vendor lock-in
✔️ Support for your existing VMware licenses
✔️ Early access and guidance from our expert teams
✔️ Hardware we design and build in-house, optimized for VMware workloads

This is not just about keeping up. It’s about staying ahead—with the right ally, and at the right time in history—with OVHcloud and VMware.

Forward ho!

🔗 https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/hosted-private-cloud/

🔗 https://www.ovhcloud.com/fr/solutions/migration-program/

In order to make life easier for our hosting and integration users, we recently finalised our Bare Metal Cloud universe, with high added-value infrastructure and storage services. This new category of products is called Managed Bare Metal, to distinguish itself from dedicated Bare Metal servers that are fully managed by our users.

We operate Managed Bare Metal for them, allowing them to benefit from our automation, orchestration and management capabilities 24/7, while maintaining independence and control over their infrastructures. Therefore, with the enhancement of other virtualisation and storage solutions, our first Managed Bare Metal offering is called “Managed Bare Metal Essentials, powered by VMware®”.

A new generation of Bare Metal

This first building block is based on VMware, and further demonstrates our capacity for innovation and standardisation, thanks to our ecosystem of technological partners. Having been one of the first European cloud providers to launch a Hosted Private Cloud solution using VMware, our service is now available to companies familiar with Bare Metal, who want a ready-to-use, resilient, scalable infrastructure at the best price. These companies no longer want to worry about implementing and managing their infrastructure, instead preferring to focus on their added value and developing their business applications.

Combining the best of both worlds – Bare Metal and virtualisation by VMware – this solution simplifies the management of virtual machines and associated resources, while also enjoying high availability. In just a few clicks, users can deploy, move, size and back up their virtual machines. The Managed Bare Metal Essentials offer helps companies to both save time and increase productivity.

Scalability and data governance

This range is composed of 3 packs:

• The Essentials ESS64 Pack, based on two Intel Xeon E5 2689 V4 single processor hosts with 64 GB of memory and two 2 TB SSD datastores. This infrastructure is fully dedicated and redundant. The bandwidth of the infrastructure’s hardware as well as the public bandwidth is 3 Gbit/s and is unlimited. The VMware Enterprise Plus licence is also available in this pack.
• The ESS128 Essentials Pack and the ESS256 Essentials Pack will be available soon, with an Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4 processor and 128 GB of memory for ESS128 and an Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4 dual processor and 256 GB of memory for ESS256. The rest of the pack is identical to the ESS64.

Resources can be reduced or increased depending on the workload. Users can add or delete hosts and datastores directly from the control panel. Additional hosts may be the same or different from the starter pack hosts; for example, ESS128 or ESS256 hosts can be added to an ESS64 Essentials pack. The additional datastores have capacities ranging from 3 TB to 36 TB. New resources are delivered in 30 minutes, and billing is delivered either on a monthly or hourly basis, clearly explained without any unexpected charges.

There are many VMware features available with our packs:

• vMotion to hot-migrate virtual machines without service interruptions
• vSphere High Availability (HA) for automatic reboots in the event of a hardware failure
• DRS (Dynamic Resources Scheduling) that automatically harmonises resource usage to avoid overload
• Fault Tolerance allows VMware to automatically send the virtual machine to a passive host in the event of a host failure, thereby anticipating any service interruptions
• vROps (vRealise Operations) to continuously optimise performance, management, and capacity planning

And additional options are available:

• Automatic backup via our “Veeam managed backup” solution, to ensured that your data is backed up and restored in the event of a problem
• Floating IPs for more flexibility in developing or releasing your applications

Our Managed Bare Metal Essentials offer has been rolled out worldwide, and is now available in several of our datacentres: in France (RBX, SBG), the UK (ERI), Germany (LIM), Canada (BHS) and the United States (HIL, VIN). Users can choose where their infrastructures are hosted, according to their business issues or the local regulations they want to comply with. They also get a ready-to-deploy environment that is fully operational in just a few hours, and can be fully customised to suit their needs.

The Managed Bare Metal Essentials, powered by VMware® offer is further testimony to how we listen to our users and pay attention to how they consume, use and manage their infrastructures. It has been designed in line with our values, and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to simplifying the deployment and management of cloud infrastructures, with simple billing and interfaces that provide the best customer experience, while respecting their fundamental rights and freedoms, including their data protection rights.

There is no other equivalent on the market, and it paves the way for the new managed infrastructure ranges planned for 2021. These new ranges will be available at a very competitive price/performance ratio and will have our two key differentiating markers – reversibility and interoperability – that our users expect. More than ever in 2021, our ability to innovate by providing an ecosystem, and our ability to understand and anticipate the market, will prove to be our best assets.