They say superheroes are evolved humans. VMware Cloud Foundation 9 is becoming the evolved private cloud platform.

Not just a routine upgrade, VCF 9 represents an entire shift in how private cloud infrastructure is built, operated, and consumed, efficiently and cohesively.

When companies have traditionally modernized their infrastructure, they’ve upgraded it in pieces: whether compute, networking, storage or automation tools. But over time, this discombobulation can cause problems, including configuration inconsistency, upgrade schedule variations, tool sprawl, complex dependencies, higher operational risk…

Until today.

VCF 9 is reframing this old model, so that private cloud operations and cloud consumption can sit at the center of the platform, able to be upgraded in a coordinated, stack-wide manner. Unified by a single lifecycle engine and a consistent policy model, they can now enjoy integrated automation across the full stack.

For those organizations who may be modernizing VMware environments – especially those consuming managed services such as OVHcloud’s upcoming Private VMware Cloud Foundation as-a-Service – this shift has measurable operational and economic impact. They are being rescued by a new full-stack software platform, you might say.

Read on to better understand the future of VMware Cloud Foundation 9, and what it means for the future of private cloud.

1. One Interface for Private Cloud Operations

VCF 9 provides a unified operational experience through the VCF Operations Console.

Instead of managing lifecycle tasks across disconnected tools, administrators are gaining centralized visibility for:

• Fleet-wide lifecycle management
• Security posture and compliance
• Certificate and identity management
• Diagnostics and health monitoring
• Global upgrades and patch orchestration

This reduces one of the biggest hidden costs in enterprise infrastructure: operational drift.

According to an IDC Business Value study sponsored by Broadcom, organizations running VCF environments have reported:

• 61% faster deployment of new workloads
• 34% lower infrastructure costs compared to traditional three-tier environments

The key driver is not just automation, it’s platform consistency.

For customers consuming managed VCF services, that will translate into more predictable maintenance windows and reduced operational risk.

2. A Unified Cloud Consumption Experience

Private cloud only delivers full value when it behaves like cloud.

VCF 9 strengthens the consumption model through VCF Automation, and is providing:

• A modern self-service interface
• Unified APIs for infrastructure provisioning
• Infrastructure as Code support
• Policy-based governance built into deployment
• Integrated Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) constructs for multi-tenancy

This allows infrastructure teams to offer curated service catalogs or developer-driven IaaS consumption models – without having to sacrifice governance.

Instead of tickets and manual coordination, application teams will now be able to provision:

• Virtual machines
• Networking constructs
• Storage volumes
• Kubernetes clusters

All governed by centralized policies. The result: faster delivery with controlled oversight.

3. Memory Tiering with NVMe: Production-Ready Efficiency

With VCF 9, Advanced NVMe Memory Tiering allows NVMe devices to function as a second tier of memory, intelligently placing memory pages to extend effective capacity without scaling DRAM costs linearly. In a context where infrastructure costs and hardware availability are becoming critical constraints, this capability helps organizations extract more value from existing servers.

Key enhancements in VCF 9 include:

• DRS and vMotion awareness
• Mixed-cluster flexibility (enabled on some hosts or all)
• Redundancy support via multiple NVMe devices
• Encryption at VM and host level
• Default DRAM: NVMe ratio shift to 1:1 (2× memory by default), customizable up to 1:4

Broadcom internal testing observed:

• Up to 40% TCO savings for most workloads
• Up to 25–30% increased CPU utilization
• Improved VM consolidation ratios

These results depend on workload profiles, particularly environments with high allocated memory but lower active memory.

In practical terms, Memory Tiering allows organizations to run more workloads on the same hardware footprint, improving infrastructure efficiency at a time when compute capacity, DRAM availability, and cost pressures are increasingly shaping infrastructure decisions.

4. Cost Transparency Built Into the Platform

Private cloud economics are increasingly under scrutiny. VCF 9 integrates:

• Chargeback and showback capabilities
• Capacity planning and optimization insights
• Cost allocation across tenants
• Predictive modeling for infrastructure scaling

According to VMware’s internal cloud economics analysis, organizations may be even able to achieve:

40% cost reduction compared to native public cloud alternatives

Again, results vary by environment, but cost predictability is a core advantage of modern private cloud operating models.

5. Security, Sovereignty, and Governance by Design

VCF 9 reinforces security as a built-in platform layer:

• Centralized identity federation
• Certificate lifecycle management
• Compliance monitoring
• Integrated security operations visibility
• VPC-aware segmentation

This matters for regulated industries and sovereign cloud environments, where operational consistency and policy enforcement are not optional.

Private cloud becomes less about “location” and more about operating model: governance is embedded into infrastructure.

6. What This Means for OVHcloud Customers

VMware Cloud Foundation 9 is also changing how service providers design managed environments.

To align with the domain-based architecture and lifecycle model introduced in VCF 9, OVHcloud is developing a new offer: Private VMware Cloud Foundation as-a-Service.

Key elements include:

• VCF license portability to OVHcloud
• Enforced Identity and Access Management (IAM) policies (avoiding local user models)
• Pre-configured vSAN hosts within cluster designs
• Seamless maintenance window scheduling
• Roadmap including 1-AZ and 3-AZ stretched cluster versions (currently in Alpha for business-critical workloads)

It’s important to distinguish:

• VCF provides the unified platform. OVHcloud builds the managed operational framework around it.
• The goal is not just to run VCF 9, but to operationalize it cleanly, and at scale.

A Strategic Version, Not a Cosmetic One

VMware Cloud Foundation 9 marks a fundamental shift:

• From component integration to unified platform
• From manual lifecycle orchestration to fleet-wide automation
• From infrastructure provisioning to cloud consumption models
• From siloed tooling to consolidated operations

For infrastructure architects and CTOs, this version matters because it reduces friction across the entire private cloud lifecycle.

Less manual intervention.
More deterministic upgrades.
Better resource efficiency.
Stronger governance.

And for managed service customers, it means a private cloud that behaves like a cloud, but under your control.

VCF 9 is becoming the new private cloud platform built to meet modern demands head-on. Super, by design.

Find out more about VMware on OVHcloud: https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-ie/solutions/vmware/

Join the Alpha and be the first to test Private VMware Cloud Foundation as-a-Service: https://survey.ovh.com/index.php/547617?lang=en

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/

Crack, splash, boom! In 2024, the VMware ecosystem endured a seismic shift. Broadcom acquired VMware and quickly introduced a controversial change in its pricing model — shifting from a vRAM-based system to one centered on per physical core (pCore) licensing — and shaking the veritable ground users stood upon.

What once allowed customers to pay for what they used (GB of reserved memory) suddenly turned into a fixed core-based cost model of costly uncertainty. This expensive paradigm shift — a complete disruption of customer expense and infrastructure woe — was particularly painful for the SMBs, or small and mid-sized enterprises. With their small configurations (less than 16 cores per host), they had not been using advanced VMware features as NSX, yet were suddenly facing all new requirements to obtain a license.

Innovation, disrupted.

As a solution for these customers over the last 15 years, OVHcloud has delivered the most powerful, certified VMware platform across 3 continents: Managed VMware vSphere, a dedicated and fully-managed VMware service.

Though this change did not impact customers with large configurations and many activated features, OVHcloud customers that were using small hardware configuration of managed VMware vSphere environments were now struggling to find footing on this new shaky ground, as were their service providers. Our Managed vSphere offers were significantly impacted by the rise in cost, a fact that could have a devastating impact on our customers.

Even as many businesses found themselves suddenly uprooted and disoriented, we at OVHcloud were proud to provide a new avenue for migration and choice, while maintaining a trusted continuity of service. The great OVHcloud solution allowed our customers to keep using our services while mitigating this destabilizing change — their building foundations standing strong once again.

A new way forward: OVHcloud migrates you to Public VCF as-a-Service

The idea of “Innovation for Freedom” is at OVHcloud’s very core: we believe in the accessibility of tech for all. As such, we proudly launched a large-scale initiative to propose to the most impacted customers the migration from Managed VMware vSphere to our brand new Public VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation) as-a-Service, sparing them from suffering broken infrastructures, a would-be massive price hike, and the painful bruises of manual migration.

We saw an opportunity to support our customers during a challenging time, rather than leaving them to navigate licensing changes on their own. This situation prompted us to innovate and develop new solutions that would benefit our customers, ensuring they could continue to thrive without disruption.

Why with Public VCF as-a-Service? 

Customers were primarily concerned with the price increase stemming from the change, rather than the product. The transition toward VCF makes sense and bring a lot of good things, and VMware is a strong and efficient solution. So we addressed the price, kept the quality, and included a seamless migration for our customers a key part of the project’s objectives.

• A cost-effective shared infrastructure that absorbs the spike in core-based pricing.
• A seamless transition with no reskilling required, one that mirrors the existing VMware environment.
• A sovereign and trusted cloud — our datacenters are located in Europe and Canada, aligned with GDPR, ISO/IEC 27000, and SecNumCloud certifications.

Customer segmentation: a tailored migration strategy

Our hero strategy? Trying to save as many as we can! To optimize risk-sharing and minimize disruption, we grouped our customers based on their technological context. We started with:

1. Customers with a simple footprint —often without hybrid capabilities.
2. Microsoft-licensed customers — operating with centralized licensing servers.
3. Network virtualized customers — heavy NSX deployments needing precise mapping.
4. vSAN/Hyperconverged environments — complex storage structures requiring careful transition.

How we rebuilt the tech city: fully automated, risk-free migration

Like a city crumbled by disaster, migration at this scale required more than planning—it demanded precision. That’s why OVHcloud built a fully automated orchestration stack (based on Golang — and we used open-source zPod project during the R&D phase). Here’s what that blueprint looked like:

• Pre-checks: Scan for blockers, validate configurations, freeze periods.
• Customer context creation: Networking (VXLAN/VLAN), NFS storage, user access.
• Migration execution: vMotion, IS and billing mapping, end-of-window verification.
• Final validation: Public IP, health checks, affinity rules, segment profiles.

Challenges overcome

We came together on this one — it wasn’t a simple “lift and shift” of the rubble. Among the technical and operational challenges our teams tackled:

• Lifecycle and deployment hardening at scale
• Layer 2 connectivity and VXLAN bridging
• Multi-tenant orchestration with LACP complexity
• Preserving customer-specific network and software topologies

It must be said, these are real-world obstacles were such that only an experienced partner could solve and fix them efficiently. OVHcloud is proud to not have shrunk away from the challenge, and to count this among the wins that will help keep the tech world growing strong.

Why this matters: freedom, continuity, and cost protection

What makes the OVHcloud solution unique? We decided to prioritize the big picture and the every-customer, seeing the future we could rebuild together and not the money we could skim on the side. Innovation, freedom, togetherness. We stand tall in OVHcloud’s values, while even managing to:

• Ensure a price freeze for 9-12 months, despite the VMware price hike, while we migrated the customer to their new “Public VCF as-a-Service” environment
• Not allow a service disruption, and planning migration while running, with “hot” vMotion and real-time storage mapping
• Introduce License Portability (BYOL) coming soon—bring your existing VMware licenses and activate in minutes to Managed VMware vSphere, not weeks.

Power of Choice, Powered by OVHcloud

OVHcloud’s Managed VMware solutions offer businesses a fully managed, enterprise-grade virtualization platform that combines VMware’s industry-leading software with our trusted infrastructure, support, and security.

Current Managed VMware solutions

With VMware’s new pricing model placing pressure on thousands of businesses, OVHcloud didn’t just react—we innovated. We designed a new way forward, delivered it with little cost to you, and scaled a migration model that turns a pricing crisis into a platform evolution that you can rebuild on.

Continuing the transformation

Like heroes who care, we won’t stop here. We will keep on adapting our offering to the need of our customers: 

• New hardware for Managed VMware vSphere, reviewed to better fit the new licensing rules and provide, as always, the best price/performance ratio
• A whole new managed VMware Cloud Fundation solution to give you all that VCF 9 has to offer, including a fully managed stretched cluster version already in alpha
• For those seeking on-premise solutions, with OPCP (On-Premise Cloud Platform) already allows to bring VCF at home

To our customers, big and small: we see you, and we value you. Your freedom to choose, adapt, grow and stay safe, even in the face of disaster—this is our mission that we are proud to uphold.

Up, up and away!

“Your turn to try!”
Attracting thousands of participants at VMware Explore 2025 in Las Vegas, this year’s Hands-on Labs (HOL) offered professionals the opportunity to explore VMware technologies firsthand. Backed by OVHcloud, the HOL was presented with a guided, cloud-hosted environment for an internationally scalable learning experience. As the #1 European cloud provider and a global cloud leader, OVHcloud is also the exclusive infrastructure partner for VMware Explore’s on-tour events across the world.

OVHcloud imparts its deep VMware expertise to deliver the high-performance, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure that powers every HOL session. Users are able to enjoy a seamless, immersive, and always-on learning experience — at scale.

“We’re proud to be the infrastructure partner powering VMware’s legendary Hands-on Labs — opportunities where new skills are forged, where innovation begins, and where ideas become action,” said Jeffrey Gregor, General Manager, OVHcloud US.

A Partnership of Scale, Reliability, and Excellence

Partners for over 15 years, the collaboration between OVHcloud and VMware by Broadcom goes beyond event sponsorship and into a much more technical capacity. OVHcloud expertise delivers cloud infrastructure at scale, meeting the intense demands of a live, global environment, as is demonstrated at VMware Explore.

In Las Vegas and beyond, the HOL sessions and on-tour editions were run on an environment architected and monitored by OVHcloud experts, all while they supported thousands of concurrent lab users worldwide. This includes the new VMware Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) labs — within which compute, networking, storage, and automation all run seamlessly on OVHcloud infrastructure — as they extend VMware’s global learning community.

“OVHcloud was the right infrastructure partner for powering these labs,” explained Marc Ray, Senior Cloud DevOps Engineer at OVHcloud US. “Our hardware capabilities and flexibility allowed us to automate deployments, optimize performance, and scale dynamically — all critical during a live event.”

VMware Cloud Director (VCD) at Scale

Making it all possible, the Hands-on Labs run on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) combined with VMware Cloud Director (VCD), which together orchestrate thousands of individual lab environments at once. VCD provides the control, automation, and resource management that allow each participant to launch a dedicated, fully featured lab environment in just seconds — complete with full isolation, high performance, and reliability. [Learn more about VCD.]

Building on this speedy success, OVHcloud has extended its use of VCD beyond the event by running it at scale for customers worldwide through its new Public VCF as-a-Service offering. This solution brings the same trusted architecture and operational excellence used in the Hands-on Labs to enterprises looking for flexible, high-performance VMware Cloud Foundation environments. With Public VCF as-a-Service, OVHcloud enables organizations to deploy VMware infrastructure on demand — with the same scalability, automation, and transparency that power VMware’s Hands-on Labs.

Inside the Infrastructure: Proven for Peak Performance

To support VMware Explore’s massive learning ecosystem, OVHcloud deployed a custom-engineered cloud platform designed to exceed VMware’s rigorous specifications.

HOL Configuration Overview:

• 37 dedicated servers across multiple OVHcloud datacenters
• 4.47 THz total CPU, 28.83 TB RAM, and 843.6 TB of NVMe VSAN storage (450 TB usable)
• Powered by Intel Cascade Lake processors and vSphere 8
• Fully managed through VMware Cloud Director (VCD) — the same foundation as OVHcloud’s Public VCF service

This configuration not only met but surpassed the HOL’s minimum requirements, ensuring ultra-low latency, high availability, and predictable performance even under heavy load.

“Our teams fine-tuned everything — from bandwidth and QoS optimization to automated scaling,” said Mike Burbach, Senior Manager of Private Cloud Computing at OVHcloud. “It’s a great example of what OVHcloud does best: delivering large, customized environments that perform flawlessly at scale.”

Cross-Continental Engineering Excellence

From architecture design to deployment, the success of the Hands-on Labs relied on tight coordination between OVHcloud and VMware engineering teams. Weekly global touchpoints ensured unified planning across regions, timelines, and teams — all built on transparency, technical rigor, and mutual trust.

“From the first meeting, it was clear we shared the same goal: creating an exceptional experience for everyone using VMware Labs,” Burbach added. “That alignment and expertise made all the difference.”

This close collaboration made it possible to deploy and validate a high-performing environment in record time — one that thousands of participants could instantly connect to, explore, and tear down safely between sessions.

“Within seconds of lab selection, users are connected to a validated environment,” explained Doug Baer, Solution Architect, Broadcom. “That seamlessness is powered by thoughtful design and trusted partnerships behind the scenes.”

Giving a Hand to the Hands-On Labs Community

Behind the technology itself lies an equally powerful community of experts, engineers, and volunteers dedicated to empowering learners.

Kelly Smith, Technical Engagement Manager for Hands-on Labs, described OVHcloud’s contribution as essential:

“Our goal is to make the infrastructure invisible. Thanks to OVHcloud, users can focus entirely on exploring VMware products — without friction or complexity getting in the way.”

Chris Horning, Staff Technical Account Manager, echoed this view:

“Having a partner like OVHcloud that can rapidly scale to meet demand — while ensuring consistent and predictable performance — is critical to our success.”

From technical volunteers like Catherine Skilling, who emphasized collaboration and community, to product leaders like David D’Antremont, who highlighted the breadth of content and innovation — every voice points reiterates the same message: the success of HOL depends on its infrastructure, but also on the people behind it.

HOL On Tour: Bringing the Experience to You

Following the flagship event in Las Vegas, VMware Explore On Tour brings the same immersive learning experience to cities around the world. These regional events extend the impact of Hands-on Labs, enabling professionals to engage with VMware technologies, meet local experts, and participate in live demos and technical sessions — all supported by OVHcloud’s global infrastructure.

For 2025, VMware Explore On Tour stops include major cities such as London, Paris, Frankfurt, Sydney, Mumbai, and Tokyo, each hosting in-depth workshops, customer success stories, and opportunities to connect with the VMware and OVHcloud teams in person.

Wherever professionals join, the On Tour experience continues the same mission as Las Vegas: learning by doing, powered by collaboration and innovation.

From Las Vegas to the World: OVHcloud at the Heart of Global Learning

What starts at VMware Explore Las Vegas extends worldwide through the HOL On Tour program. Across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas, the same cloud infrastructure — proudly powered by OVHcloud — enables professionals everywhere to experience VMware solutions firsthand. EMEA (London, Paris & Frankfurt) & APAC (Sydney, Mumbai & Tokyo)

This global reach underscores OVHcloud’s proven ability to deliver enterprise-grade VMware environments at scale, and anywhere in the world.

“Having a partner like OVHcloud ensures a seamless lab experience and helps make Explore a success, giving every attendee the performance they need for hands-on learning,” said David D’Antremont.

Conclusion: Hands Up to OVHcloud for Hands-On Labs

Providing opportunities to learn is how ideas are shaped, formed and spread. From concept to execution, the 2025 Hands-on Labs are a testament to what happens when engineering excellence meets purpose-built cloud infrastructure, and then sharing it with the wider public. Through its exclusive partnership with VMware by Broadcom, OVHcloud demonstrates its technical strength as well as its commitment to enabling innovation for thousands in the global VMware community.

The Hands-on Labs are living proof of OVHcloud’s expertise in building resilient, performant, and scalable cloud environments that make exploration possible for those ready to get hands-on.

“These labs aren’t just demos — they’re opportunities,” concluded Jeffrey Gregor. “They’re where innovation begins — and where ideas become action.”  

Let’s give a hand for the future of Hands-On labs!

Learn More

🎥 WATCH Inside the Hands-on Labs VIDEO
Experience the innovation, scale, and community behind the OVHcloud-powered VMware Explore environment.
📅 Book a 1:1 meeting with OVHcloud experts at us.ovhcloud.com/lp/vmware-lab
💡 Explore VMware Hands-on Labs at labs.hol.vmware.com

Today, we’re not going to talk about why you should protect your data. Because you know you should. In this article, we’ll discuss the different data backup options available, and the ideal software, skills and storage package for you.

In this article, we’ll discuss the different data backup options available, and the ideal software, skills and storage package for you.

Introduction

In the backup world, we can identify two major non-exclusive options for running backups:
Enterprise Backup Solutions and Specialised Backup.

Enterprise Backup Solutions are software capable of executing multiple backups from different sources to a wide choice of destinations. They usually have a very user-friendly User Interface/Command-Line Interface, powerful scheduling capabilities, a range of flexible features, and come with compliance and certifications. They provide extensive support, with large communities you can rely on in the long term.

On the other hand, some applications and/or databases have their own Specialised Backup mechanism. They’re optimised, efficient and extremely popular due to their high performance and, quite often, they don’t need additional licences. However, very often you need to rely on the application/database administrator to take care of the backups.

To summarise:

• Enterprise Backup Solutions are fairly universal, can easily support a company-wide backup strategy, are user-friendly and can meet detailed pre-requisites.
• Specialised Backups are high performance and low cost which is appealing, but they can be difficult to use within a global backup strategy and administrators require specific knowledge.

As well as the tool used to move data, we must consider that data has a source and a destination. Keeping in mind the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies of your data (your production data and 2 backup copies) on 2 different media (disk and tape for example) with 1 copy off-site for disaster recovery), and the amount of sources in a modern IT system, both the choice of software solution and hardware platform used to store the backups must meet both the Global Backup Strategy and… your budget. There is also 3-2-1-1-0 backup strategy, which is another option. After all, even if the technical possibilities are infinite, the budget isn’t.

Enterprise Backup Solutions

So, let’s look at the most practical choices you can make to protect your precious data, whilst not having to rob a bank or ten. And to be honest, we’re mainly going to be looking at cloud services. Not just because we’re a cloud services company, but because cloud storage makes a lot of sense. We’ll demonstrate why.

There are numerous Enterprise Backup Solutions on the market and some have been around for a while. You’ve probably used one, and you’re probably still using that same one today. Why? Because you developed expertise in it, and you built your backup strategy based on its features and recommendations. And that makes sense. Your staff’s experience and skills should never be discounted when investigating opportunities for expanding your backup strategy for new workloads or changing to a cloud service. But very often, this expertise translates very easily to new systems, thanks to the use of standard vocabulary and similar mechanisms. So changing to a new Enterprise Backup Solution shouldn’t be too frightening, as expertise is rarely lost; but usually expanded.

Today, all Enterprise Backup Software supports cloud backup. Whether it’s from the cloud or to the cloud. And it doesn’t come as a surprise, as a lot of workloads are in the cloud – and backups too.
Remember the 3-2-1 rule? The cloud is particularly good for storing your off-site copy given that there are hosting locations all over the world.

OVHcloud Enterprise Backup Solutions

At OVHcloud, our IaaS products are compatible with all major Enterprise Backup Software, and some, like Veeam and HYCU, are even certified to run on our Enterprise platforms. And we also provide the adequate licences so you don’t have to use yet another provider.

You can pair Veeam/HYCU solutions with nearly any Operating System/application and benefit from advanced integration with VMware and Nutanix hypervisors. They have certified compatibility with Network File System / Common Internet File System /Object Storage and you can even add features to improve security.

It’s slightly outside the scope of this article, but our Managed VMware platform even has a Zerto option, allowing you to add replication to the highly recommended backups.

Our Public Cloud instances can be protected using snapshots and backups. All our Bare Metal servers include an external storage of 500GB which can used for your backup. This storage can be extended by up to 10TB.

Other Enterprise Backup Solutions

If you want more control over your backup strategy, leveraging your expertise and fitting it to your specific requirements, it is possible to build your own backup infrastructure with OVHcloud.

 All the major players in the Enterprise Backup market are compatible and already used by OVHcloud’s customers. To mention but a few: Veeam, HYCU, Datamotive, Nakivo, Veritas Technologies, Scality, CommVault, Rubrik, Acronis and Cohesity.

Open-Source Backup Solutions

And of course, if you’d rather use open-source software, Bacula is a perfectly viable option, or the simple but robust rsync. After all, if you just need to keep a reasonably updated copy of your data somewhere else, the simplest tool can often do the job. There’s many open-source options…

Specialised Backup Solutions

Kubernetes workloads

In the Cloud Native / Public Cloud / PaaS environment, you have access to and compatibility with the main players too:

• Velero
• CloudCasa
• TrilioVault
• Veeam Kasten
• and many others.

Application/Database workloads

But what if you use specific application/database mechanisms?
Given that our promise is to be open, agnostic and reversible, we do not block third party software from interacting with your data. So as long as you have the expertise to install and manage them, you can use them and make the most of our large storage portfolio.

Many solutions integrate a mechanism from, for example, pre-backup and post-backup to launch backup of your databases. Of course, if you use your databases with our VMware by Broadcom and/or Nutanix offer, you can rely on Veeam Enterprise and HYCU.

As specified earlier, all major players in the Enterprise backup Software have modules for database protection: Nakivo, Veritas Technologies, Scality, CommVault, Rubrik, Acronis and Cohesity

OVHcloud PaaS Backup

Our Public Cloud instances can be protected using snapshots and backups and our Managed Kubernetes are compatible with several industry leading backup software such as Velero, Triliovault and CloudCasa.

Here is the recap’ of how our Public Cloud Managed products are protected and your options:

SaaS Backup and Solutions

When we’re talking about cloud and Specialised Backup, we can’t forget to mention the SaaS offers. As much as they’re convenient, affordable and widely available, making sure that your data is safe is not always included in the contract. It’s always worth researching this before committing, or you might discover unsuspected charges for your backup.

At OVHcloud, we have a large portfolio of partners who can help. You can find our complete partners directory here.

For Microsoft Office 365 backup, RG system provides a solution hosted on OVHcloud datacentre.

For Cybercriminality incidences, SI Vital solution maintains access to your vital, uninterrupted data and applications, as well as a secure, professional communications platform. A business continuity solution co-constructed with OVHcloud.

Different Types of Storage For Your Backup

Whether you are using an Enterprise Backup Solution or a Specialised Backup mechanism, you can store the backups on dedicated servers (Bare Metal storage), dedicated storage (NAS/HA, Enterprise File Storage), or the current global preferred choice for backup: Object Storage.

All OVHcloud storage solutions : https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/storage-solutions/

And because a picture is worth a thousand words (and that’s about how many words you’ve read so far in this article):

Object Storage & Cold Archive

Object Storage is particularly well-adapted to backup because:

• data growth is not limited by the underlying hardware
• it’s cost-effective
• it’s pseudo disconnected or fully disconnected in some cases
• it’s application/Operating System agnostic
• it’s friendly to static data
• it works with tapes.

Our Object Storage options are:

• Standard Object Storage: ideal for general backups.
• Performance Object Storage: ideal for critical and large backups as its high performance reduces backup and restore time.
• Cold Archive: ideal for meeting the legal requirement for data conservation and disconnected backup for safety.

Block Storage

Block Storage is still a very attractive option for storing backups because of its predictable performance and safety inherent to direct access to storage and RAID. It is the favoured media for on-premises infrastructure as storage arrays are widely available and distributed across datacentres. This distribution and the potential replication options provided by the storage arrays allow you to keep your data safe without causing you headaches. One caveat to mention is that Block Storage it is mostly reserved for server backup since end users don’t have easy access to centralised Block Storage.

File Storage

If you want to protect your users’ shares/export, File Storage is very convenient and access to the data is not bound to physical connections as is often the case for Block Storage. As long as you have access rights and network connection, using File Storage for backup is easy. Most File Storage also provides snapshots, and even though it can’t be considered a backup solution, it does provide a fast recovery mechanism. Advanced File Storage solutions provide replication and High Availability mechanisms.

Expert & Partner Ecosystem

And if you feel intimidated, our Professional Services, Solution Architect and partners can help you make an educated choice and a solid migration. But what if your data is already in the cloud? How is it protected and how can it be?

Well, the devil is in the detail, and very often, protecting your data is your responsibility, not your provider’s. So never ever assume that because your data is in the cloud, it’s automagically protected in the case of an incident.
What we do at OVHcloud is provide access to snapshots for some of our services. But there’s no Service-Level Agreement associated with these snapshots and they may not respect the 3-2-1 rule, hence are not backups.

• OVHcloud Professional Services
• OVHcloud Partner directory
• OVHcloud ISV directory
• OVHcloud Marketplace

Conclusion

Let’s finish by talking about the ideal global backup service approach for you, encompassing software and storage. The main differentiator is going to be: how much control do you want over your backup? Once you have an inventory of the data you need to backup, the first step is to check compatibility with existing or future Enterprise Backup Solutions. Most of the time, you’ll find several solutions that are able to support your needs and protect a vast majority of your data, even if they’re both on-premise and in the cloud. Having all your data in the same place is of course easier, but it rarely happens.

Then you need to verify which of the Software Solutions you’re considering are suitable for your backup strategy. And this is the perfect time to step back and evaluate. Have you missed anything? Does everything follow industry standards? And finally, who can help you find the best compromise between safety and cost. Ideally, we’ve answered all these questions above, so let’s have a look at what we can offer here:

The not-so-unexpected changes to subscription and licensing that followed VMware’s acquisition of Broadcom in November 2023 left users feeling uncertain and weighing their options. Broadcom’s modernisation and optimisation strategy (for cloud and edge) especially, also made end-users and channel partners look for alternatives to VMware.

VMware is known for its high scalability, live migration, security, and high performance, making it a top choice for virtualisation and full SDDC projects. Regardless, the decision to switch from perpetual to annual software licensing could potentially diminish the benefits of its cost-effective model. The uncertainty surrounding the Total Cost of Ownership of VMware is bad news for CFOs and CTOs.

What alternatives should users look for?

Virtualisation platforms like Citrix, Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle Virtual Box, Red Hat Virtualisation, Nutanix, etc., are now back on the scene.  Nonetheless, the quest for an ideal VMware alternative hasn’t been an easy one.

Choosing a virtualisation platform is a bold decision. They all come with their strengths and weaknesses, and one must learn to live with it for a while, as it’s not always easy to change. Drawbacks include limited compatibility, third-party add-ons integration, steep learning curve, specific infrastructure needs, and difficult integration. But it’s all up to you and what you’re looking for. Considering the limitations and capabilities of the virtualisation platforms available, a change may be on the cards given the current the industry shift.

How about using VMware without spending too much?

If you’d rather keep using VMware for your virtualisation projects and not explore other options, you can choose VMware managed by OVHcloud. With managed VMware, you don’t have to give up complete control with dedicated hosts and infrastructure. You still have control over your virtual machines, and benefit from network security with NSX, container management with Tanzu, a modular solution in a dedicated and managed environment – with Starter packs offering different options – which you can explore on our  VMware on OVHcloud page. They provide hosts dedicated to your workloads, with several options such as vSAN and NSX, PCI-DSS, HDS and SecNumCloud to meet your compliance requirements.

You do get all these features at a competitive and predictable price, without licensing uncertainties. You get to enjoy OVHcloud core features and benefits, as well as latest generation technology and VMware Cloud Foundation suite.

What’s involved in moving from VMware beyond the tech?

Switching from VMware to another technology is more than just a technical change; it covers processes, people, and how the organisation works. Technically speaking, migrating from VMware means dealing with new platforms, reconfiguring systems, and making sure everything is compatible. But it goes beyond the tech nitty-gritty. To keep up, organisations need to revamp their workflows, update documentation, and train teams to use new tech. The human side is just as important – change can be tough for people, so managing team dynamics and communication carefully can really help. Also, this switch might throw a wrench into project timelines, budgeting, and strategic priorities.

Dealing with all these different aspects is key to a smooth and successful migration, making sure both the technology and the people using it are ready for the change.

Let’s see in more details what Nutanix offers

Since the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, Nutanix has made it clear that  they’re ready to welcome VMware customers who are worried  about licensing stability. They promise  unmatched efficiency, performance, and scalability and easy migration. The best thing about Nutanix is its user-friendly platform that has the  tools and resources you need, so you don’t have to juggle multiple interfaces.

Nutanix started many years ago with a Hyperconverged (HCI) solution: compute, storage and network, all integrated and managed seamlessly through a single pane of glass – Prism Central, their flagship software. It offers flexible scaling that lets you assign, increase or reduce resources as needed, at any time. You can expect improved efficiency and optimised infrastructure through features like data deduplication, compression, and resource usage optimisation, which saves time and costs. It has its own AHV hypervisor but can also support the most popular hypervisors, such as Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware ESXi, should you wish to keep them, although not all features are available outside AHV. Let’s not forget its built-in network and security features for data protection.

Let’s take a look at “Nutanix on OVHcloud”

If you’re looking to create and manage VMs and containers on a large scale, with a highly available, scalable, secure and flexible infrastructure, while keeping your budget on a tight leash, Nutanix on OVHcloud is an option worth considering.

With Nutanix on OVHcloud, a ready-to-use cluster can be up and running in just a few hours, in one of four datacentres in Europe, Canada, or even the US.

Made up of at least three dedicated servers (up to 15 servers maximum), it gives you top-notch scalability, meaning you can adjust compute, memory and storage resources by adding or removing servers to meet your business needs. In addition to guaranteed high performance and efficiency, free ingress/egress, full compatibility with Veeam and HYCU backup you have access to different support levels – up to first response to critical incidents within 30 minutes. For more details, visit our Nutanix on OVHcloud page.

And because hybrid- and multi-cloud are very important in IT today, you manage your software upgrades at your own pace for maximum compatibility and minimum downtime, and you get to integrate your Nutanix on OVHcloud cluster in your on-premises Prism console.

But what about Bare Metal and the others?

Microsoft Hyper-V is another popular type-1 hypervisor (like VMware ESXi and Nutanix AHV), which has been growing non-stop since its release in 2008. Although it currently has a much smaller footprint than the major virtualisation players, it’s not to be ignored.

Amongst the outsiders and Linux community, several options are also available, namely Citrix Hypervisor, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Proxmox VE and KVM.

Of all the above solutions, some are easier to manage than others, may or may not have Enterprise Support, with features varying vastly from one another. But they have something in common: they can easily run on cloud infrastructure. And today, this is a major bonus.
Given the incoming potential for change for the VMware users, for those still using on-prem infrastructure, this may be a chance to free themselves from hardware procurement and maintenance, and move to the cloud.

We’ll see what our options are for each next.

Even if OVHcloud doesn’t presently have off-the-shelf offers for some Hypervisors, that doesn’t mean you can’t run them.

A very wide range of bare metal servers, with private network, guaranteed private and public bandwidth – free egress/ingress lets you to build the perfect platform. You even have access to hosts with GPUs, host with up to 2.25 TB of memory, and servers with large storage capability.

With availability in our 30+ datacentres around the world, fast delivery and total data control, our Bare Metal servers will match your requirements and your budget, thanks to our predictable pricing.

And if moving from virtual machines to containers was a way to reduce cost?

Switching from a solution you’re used to is never easy, but if VMware vSphere is no longer affordable, maybe it’s time to explore other options. Save money by shifting from VM to containers for your apps. OVHcloud offers a range of containerisation services in Public Cloud, Managed Rancher Service to centralize your Kubernetes clusters management or leverage Tanzu or other solutions on top of VMware Private Cloud clusters.

Leverage the OVHcloud Partner ecosystem to identify the right solutions to support this switch. With a team of professional experts (solution architects, IT engineers) by your side, providing you with support throughout the entire process, you’re not alone. Lastly, our professional services, which include training, delivery, and technical advice, are meant to equip you with the toolkit required to successfully manage your infrastructure.

What’s the best way to combine on-prem and private cloud models for great results?

Private cloud offers flexible deployment options, so you can mix and match on-premises infrastructure with private cloud solutions to get the most out of your IT strategies. On-prem environments give you control and stability for critical workloads and legacy systems, while private cloud (on-prem or hosted by a third-party) gives you more resources and flexibility. With on-prem private cloud, you have more control and customisation options, and with hosted private clouds – scalability with less management burden. When organisations blend these deployment models, they get the best of both worlds – reliable on-prem systems and efficient private cloud setups. They can ultimately enjoy high operational efficiency, adaptability, security and compliance. For the best of both, check our On-Premises DC as a Service.

Here’s your key takeaway from all this…

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the uncertainty surrounding software licensing, or subsequent price rises. You don’t know which of your service providers is going to make changes, or adopt a new approach or strategy that will impact its services. In the face of price rises and rapid changes, it’s always better to have a plan B up your sleeve. You can start by assessing and determining your business needs – consider primary advantages like cost-efficiency, learning curve, compatibility, support level, ease of use, security and scalability, and secondary advantages like advanced features, seamless integration and management.

VMware solutions have been leading the market for years, offering robust, scalable cloud infrastructure for businesses. This technology enables seamless integration, enhanced security, and high performance, making it a reliable choice for long-term cloud strategies. Trusted by enterprises worldwide, it continues to set the standard for private, hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

The key is finding an ally to work with you, meeting your needs and supporting your growth every step of the way. Whether you go for VMware or Nutanix on OVHcloud, or decide to build your own on Bare Metal servers , rest assured you’ll benefit from advanced features and support without surprise costs or licensing issues.

With OVHcloud’s focus on innovation, we’ll likely launch other reliable reversible solutions in the near future, so stay tuned!

OVHcloud has a large portfolio of certified partners listed on our Partner Program directory, its own teams of Solution Architect and Professional Services. With their support, you can get the best solution from OVHcloud’s services while meeting to your security, performance and budget needs.

Get more details about migration to the cloud on our dedicated webpage.

In the meantime, the competent authorities have approved Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, and the plan is being rolled out, albeit more quickly than expected. Firstly, Broadcom chose to maintain a direct relationship with only 2,000 partners across the globe. These partners will act as go-betweens for the rest of the market. To ensure fair pricing, Broadcom has decided to standardise the price of its licence, regardless of the sales channel or licence type. By offering a single licence type and price, Broadcom’s new strategy underscores its focus on cloud infrastructure. This affirms the value of the solutions we have offered our customers over the past 14 years. The vision we had in 2012 is finally becoming a reality!

Broadcom has chosen OVHcloud as one of its top global cloud partners. This standing, which stems from our extensive deployment of VMware-based servers, has enabled us to negotiate favourable pricing terms for our customers across VMware on OVHcloud, Managed Bare Metal – Essential, Dedicated Cloud, Private Cloud, SDDC, Hosted Private Cloud Premier, Hosted Private Cloud vSAN and SecNumCloud solutions. We are also laying the groundwork for the upcoming launch of our VCD Standard, VCD NSX and VCD NSX & vSAN solutions in September 2024.

Provided that the contract with Broadcom is effectively signed, the conditions negotiated by OVHcloud should enable you to benefit from price stability for the VMware licence for the next four years. As a result, until 2028, we wouldn’t be making any changes to the licensing model of our VMware on OVHcloud and VCD solutions. We’ll continue to upgrade our offerings by introducing new hardware and software solutions.

These changes are clearly positive. We’re aware that no one likes change, especially when it needs to be implemented quickly. In fact, Broadcom’s new terms and conditions will come into effect no later than 1 April 2024.

Managing the impact

Regardless of which solution our customers use, we have implemented measures to keep price increases below 3 to 5%. Before diving into the specifics, let’s first take a look at the overall situation.

1. If you’re currently using SDDC 2016, SDDC 2018, Managed Bare Metal (Essential), VMware on OVHcloud (Host: PRE 48, PRE 96 and PRE vSAN 192), we recommend migrating your VMs live – with zero downtime – to the new Standard VCD, NSX VCD or NSX VCD & vSAN solutions. OVHcloud provides support throughout the migration process.
   
   
2. If you’re currently using a VMware on OVHcloud solution (Host: PRE 192, PRE 384, PRE 768), or one of its variants (with NSX or with vSAN, excluding PRE vSAN 192), we recommend sticking with current solutions that will remain active and scalable.
   
   
3. If you’re using SecNumCloud solutions, note that there won’t be any changes in licence prices for the next two years.

You can consolidate your infrastructure irrespective of the case. For example, if you currently have 9-10 servers/hosts with 16 cores, upgrading to 4 servers/hosts with 40 cores would be advantageous. It’s also a cheaper option. If you have several large servers/hosts and 1-2 small servers/hosts, you may want to free up the smaller ones.

It’s entirely up to you, whether or not you choose to follow our recommendations. While the price increase is significant in the first scenario, consolidation could potentially be explored in select cases. Feel free to contact us to discuss this. In the second scenario, you can of course request migration to VCD.

Below, you’ll find the list of our packs and servers/hosts, including the previous price, the new price, and the price when migrating to VCD.

* Packs includes several hosts or virtual datacenters (vDC) + 2 datastores + management fees

All configurations are available here.

It’s time for our customers to choose

As previously mentioned, nothing is perfect. Broadcom has set a deadline for implementing its new pricing, which is 1 April. We are therefore required to apply this new pricing. From 1 May 2024, our current customers will be billed at the new rates, which means you have a month to decide whether you want to stick with the current solutions, or let us migrate your services to the new VCD solutions. As for new customers, the new pricing policy will be applied from 1 April 2024.

Option 1: You can stick with your current solution and consolidate your servers/hosts in April. Please feel free to contact us, so we can assist you in consolidating your infrastructure.

Option 2: You can migrate to VCD. As an exception, we won’t be charging the new current server/host prices during the migration process. We’ll absorb the costs of the licence price increase while the migration is ongoing. Whether or not you choose to continue using the current solution, you’ll still benefit the new VCD prices right away, starting on 1 May 2024. However, our goal is to migrate to VCD as soon as we’re ready. We’ll notify you 1 to 2 weeks before your migration starts, which will be carried out with zero downtime. If, for technical reasons, a live migration cannot be done, we’ll discuss with you how best to proceed.

If you are under a long-term contract with a commitment, your prices will stay the same, and you’ll have these options when your commitment ends. Moving forward, we’re here to help you understand the impacts and how to minimise them.

Broadcom’s pricing policy changes shouldn’t apply to subscribed services with SecNumCloud solutions for the next two years. OVHcloud will cover any licence cost difference. We hope Broadcom will understand the value of “sovereign” offerings, and work towards offering specific pricing soon. Furthermore, as we continue to invest heavily in SecNumCloud offerings, we’ll be launching several new and attractive solutions in the months ahead.

Current offers and the new VCD offer

In the past, we have always included licence prices with our solutions, regardless of usage, without providing a breakdown. We are committed to providing the VMware solution in the simplest and most transparent way, without any hidden costs. Therefore, our pricing will still include the choice between a per-server (VMware on OVHcloud) or all-in price per core/RAM (VCD) quantity. Our goal is to ensure this simplicity lasts a long time.

More specifically, the licence is now tied to the number of CPU cores on the server/host, with a minimum of 16 cores per CPU, regardless of usage. Previously, the licence was based on the amount of RAM with a minimum of 24 GB per virtual machine and only on active resources. Although this is a major change in the model, it aligns with market standards. Software providers apply charges to each CPU core.

The current offers will remain active, and be improved through hardware and software updates, just like in the previous years. You’re allocated X cores and Y RAM resources through dedicated physical servers, managed by you through vSphere/vCenter. All operations are still active, as they were yesterday.

vSphere is the platform used by OVHcloud to run VCD solutions. The VCD cluster relies on 20 to 30 servers/hosts, with each customer reserving cluster resources as a vHost with X cores and Y RAM (virtual datacenters – vDC). The resources on this cluster are dedicated but shared. Although the interface and APIs have slight differences, the core principles are the same.

Your data stays on the Leclerc v3 filers, just as it does now on vSphere and VCD. The ‘live’ migration between two hosts with the same CPU (Intel) is done via vMotion.

The new VCD offers are set to be released in September 2024. To ensure our customers are ready for migration by September, we’re speeding up the deployment of VCD clusters, and will subsequently offer VCD solutions to all new customers.

Conclusion

While this licensing shift may seem sudden and its implementation rough, we see this acquisition as an opportunity to innovate and provide cutting-edge services.  We’re optimistic that Broadcom will seize this opportunity to breathe new life into VMware.

We also hope that as a customer, you’ll find our support and the solution scenarios presented to you during this transition satisfactory. Lastly, our focus moving forward is to leverage VMware technology to bring you new and improved solutions.

For more information on our offers:  https://www.ovhcloud.com/en/lp/vmware-vcd-evolution/ 

Manager access: https://www.ovh.com/manager/#/dedicated/dedicated_cloud

Entre temps, les autorités ont validé le rachat de VMware par Broadcom et celui-ci déroule son plan mais en accéléré. D’abord, Broadcom a décidé de conserver une relation directe uniquement avec 2 000 entreprises partenaires dans le monde. Le reste du marché est appelé à interagir au travers de ces partenaires. Aussi Broadcom a décidé d’homogénéiser le prix de la licence en le rendant cohérent pour tous, quel que soit le canal de vente et les différentes typologies de licence. Avec maintenant un seul type de licence et un seul prix pour tous, la nouvelle stratégie de Broadcom privilégie les infrastructures dans le cloud. C’est donc la validation de l’intérêt des offres que nous avons construit pour nos clients depuis 14 ans. Ce que nous avons imaginé en 2012 arrive enfin !

Broadcom a sélectionné OVHcloud comme l’un de ses principaux partenaires cloud dans le monde. Grâce à ce statut, qui découle du volume de serveurs avec la technologie VMware, nous avons pu négocier des conditions tarifaires très intéressantes pour nos clients sur les offres VMware on OVHcloud, Managed Bare Metal – Essential, Dedicated Cloud, Private Cloud, SDDC, Hosted Private Cloud Premier, Hosted Private Cloud vSAN et les offres SecNumCloud. Nous préparons aussi l’avenir avec les futures offres VCD Standard, VCD NSX et VCD NSX & vSAN qui arrivent en septembre 2024.

Sous réserve de la signature effective du contrat avec Broadcom, les conditions négociées par OVHcloud devraient vous permettre de bénéficier d’une stabilité des prix liés à la licence VMware durant les quatre prochaines années. Ainsi et jusqu’en 2028, il n’y aurait aucun changement dans le business model de nos offres liées aux licences sur les périmètres VMware on OVHcloud et VCD. Nous ne manquerons pas de faire évoluer nos offres avec de nouvelles solutions matérielles et logicielles.

Vous l’aurez compris, les changements vont dans le bon sens. Mais nous savons aussi que personne n’aime le changement, encore moins lorsqu’il se double d’une nécessité d’exécution ultra rapide. En effet, Broadcom a imposé la date du 1^er avril 2024 pour la mise en œuvre de ses nouvelles conditions.

Des solutions pour maitriser l’impact

Quelle que soit l’offre utilisée aujourd’hui par notre clientèle, nous avons mis en place plusieurs solutions afin de limiter l’impact d’augmentation de prix à moins de 3 à 5 % dans la majorité des cas. Avant d’entrer dans les détails de chaque scénario, voici la « big picture » :

1. Si vous utilisez les offres SDDC 2016, SDDC 2018, Managed Bare Metal (Essential), VMware on OVHcloud (Hôte : PRE 48, PRE 96 et PRE vSAN 192), nous vous préconisons la migration de vos VM, sans coupure, à chaud, vers les nouvelles offres VCD Standard, VCD NSX ou VCD NSX & vSAN. OVHcloud prend en charge toute la migration.
   
   
2. Si vous êtes sur une offre VMware on OVHcloud (Hôte : PRE 192, PRE 384, PRE 768) ou une de ses variantes (avec NSX ou avec vSAN, à l’exception de PRE vSAN 192), nous vous préconisons de rester sur les offres actuelles qui vont continuer à vivre et évoluer.
   
   
3. Si vous êtes sur les offres SecNumCloud, il n’y aura aucun changement de tarif lié aux licences dans les deux prochaines années.

Dans les trois cas, vous allez également pouvoir consolider vos infrastructures, c’est-à-dire que si par exemple vous utilisez 9-10 serveurs/hôtes de 16 cœurs, vous avez un intérêt de passer sur 4 serveurs/hôtes de 40 cœurs. Cela vous coûtera moins cher. Si vous avez plusieurs gros serveurs/hôtes et 1-2 petits serveurs/hôtes, vous avez intérêt à libérer les plus petits serveurs/hôtes.

Quoi qu’il en soit, vous pouvez bien sûr ne pas suivre nos préconisations. Dans le premier cas l’augmentation de prix est très importante même si on peut imaginer dans certains cas une consolidation. Contactez-nous pour en discuter. Dans le second cas, vous pouvez bien sûr nous demander la migration vers VCD.

Vous retrouverez ci-dessous la liste de nos packs et serveurs/hôtes, avec l’ancien prix, le nouveau prix, et le prix si vous migrez sur VCD.

* Les packs inclus plusieurs hôtes ou plusieurs virtual datacenters (vDC) + 2 datastores + Frais de services managés

Toutes les configurations sont disponibles ici.

Le moment du choix pour nos clients

Comme évoqué plus haut, tout n’est pas parfait. Broadcom impose la date du 1^er avril pour l’application de sa nouvelle tarification. Nous sommes donc dans l’obligation de suivre. Nos clients existants se verront appliquer les nouveaux tarifs au 1^er mai 2024. Un délai d’un mois vous est accordé pour décider si vous souhaitez rester sur les offres actuelles ou si vous souhaitez nous confier le soin de migrer vos services vers les nouvelles offres VCD. Pour les nouveaux clients, la nouvelle politique tarifaire sera appliquée dès le 1^er avril.

Choix 1 : Vous pouvez choisir de rester sur votre offre actuelle, et éventuellement consolider vos serveurs/hôtes dans le courant du mois d’avril. N’hésitez pas à nous contacter afin que l’on puisse vous aider à consolider votre infrastructure.

Choix 2 : Vous pouvez choisir de migrer vers VCD. Exceptionnellement, en attendant la migration, nous n’allons pas appliquer les nouveaux tarifs de serveurs/hôtes actuels. Nous prenons à notre charge l’augmentation de la licence aussi longtemps que la migration n’est pas effectuée. Vous allez donc profiter immédiatement et dès le 1^er mai de nouveaux tarifs de VCD, même si vous continuez à utiliser l’offre actuelle. En contrepartie, nous souhaitons pouvoir faire la migration vers VCD dès que nous sommes prêts. Nous vous préviendrons 1 à 2 semaines avant le démarrage de votre migration, sans interruption de service. Si pour des raisons techniques, la migration ne peut pas se faire à chaud, nous discuterons ensemble afin de décider comment l’effectuer.

Si vous êtes sur un contrat long avec de l’engagement, vos tarifs demeurent inchangés et ces choix s’offriront à vous au terme de votre engagement. Nous sommes disponibles dès aujourd’hui pour vous aider à comprendre les impacts et les limiter.

Dans le cadre des offres SecNumCloud, les tarifs des services actuellement souscrits ne devraient pas être impactés par les changements de politiques tarifaires de Broadcom. Et ce, durant les 2 prochaines années. OVHcloud prendra en effet à sa charge la différence de coût des licences. Nous espérons que Broadcom comprendra l’intérêt des offres « souveraines » et pensons qu’une tarification spécifique pourra être proposée prochainement. De plus, étant donné que nous investissons beaucoup dans les solutions SecNumCloud, nous vous présenterons plusieurs nouvelles offres alternatives très intéressantes dans les prochains mois.

Les offres actuelles et la nouvelle offre VCD

Dans nos offres, nous avons historiquement choisi d’intégrer le coût de la licence, quel que soit l’usage, sans le détailler. Nous allons continuer à proposer l’offre VMware la plus simple et la plus transparente possible, sans surprise à la fin du mois. Ainsi, nous continuerons à proposer soit un tarif par serveur (VMware on OVHcloud) soit un tarif par quantité de cœur/RAM (VCD) toujours en « all-in ». La simplicité d’aujourd’hui va demeurer.

Dans le détail, la licence est désormais liée au nombre de cœurs CPUs sur le serveur / hôte, avec un minimum de 16 cœurs par CPU, quel que soit l’usage. Avant, la licence s’appliquait à la quantité de RAM avec un minimum de 24 Go par machine virtuelle et uniquement sur les ressources actives. C’est un grand changement de modèle, mais qui finalement correspond aux standards du marché. Tous les fournisseurs de software facturent au cœur CPU.

Les offres actuelles vont continuer à vivre et évoluer au rythme des mises à jour hardware et software comme durant les années précédentes. Vos ressources vous sont dédiées sous forme de X cœurs et Y RAM, grâce aux serveurs physiques qui vous sont dédiés et que vous gérez à travers vSphere / vCenter. Tout continue à fonctionner comme avant.

Les offres VCD sont opérées par OVHcloud en utilisant vSphere. Chaque cluster VCD utilise 20 à 30 serveurs/hôtes. Chaque client réserve des ressources sur le cluster sous forme d’un vHost avec X cœurs et Y RAM (virtual datacenters – vDC). Il s’agit de ressources dédiées sur un cluster mutualisé. L’interface et les API sont légèrement différents mais les principes de fonctionnement restent les mêmes.

La plus grande différence entre VCD et vSphere est que sur VCD l’utilisation des ressources est dédiée statiquement : une VM prend X cœurs et Y RAM, ces ressources sont allouées statiquement à la VM, personne d’autre ne peut les utiliser. Dans le cas de vSphere, le client peut faire de l’oversubscribe de ressources : il peut donc mutualiser une ressource matérielle sur plusieurs VM. Ceci n’est pas possible sur VCD.

Comme aujourd’hui sur vSphere et VCD, vos données restent sur les mêmes filers (Leclerc v3). La migration est effectuée à chaud via vMotion entre deux hôtes utilisant le même type de CPU (Intel).

Les nouvelles offres VCD devraient initialement arriver dans le courant du mois de septembre 2024. Nous sommes en train d’accélérer le déploiement de clusters VCD afin de préparer les migrations de nos clients avant le mois de septembre puis nous allons proposer les offres VCD à tous les nouveaux clients.

Conclusion

Bien que le changement du licensing VMware doive se faire rapidement et puisse paraître brutal, nous pensons que cette acquisition représente une opportunité pour continuer à innover et proposer de nouveaux services. Nous espérons que Broadcom saisira l’opportunité de donner un nouvel élan à VMware.

Nous espérons aussi qu’en tant que client, vous apprécierez notre accompagnement dans cette période de changement et que les scénarios de solutions proposées vous donneront satisfaction. Enfin, sachez que nous travaillons également sur le futur, afin de vous proposer de nouvelles offres avec la technologie VMware.

Plus d’informations sur nos offres: https://www.ovhcloud.com/fr/lp/vmware-vcd-evolution/

Manager : https://www.ovh.com/manager/#/dedicated/dedicated_cloud

Well, this view will be soon replaced by a new dashboard based on VMware Aria Operations (vROps)

This new dashboard includes more information that vScope. It still provides real time information and up to 30days of history. Very useful when you’re back from a well-deserved time off, when you want to identify patterns or just when someone tells you about a problem a week later 😊

A bit of history:

vScope started a long, long time ago (in a galaxy not so far away) and was providing nearly real-time status of your VMware hosts, datastores and VMs. Well, real time give or take 5mn….

At the time, it was convenient and simple enough to give an overview of your PCC and automatic colour coding was a great help to immediately identify potential problems.

Historical data was already available for Hosts and Virtual machines (up to 30days), so the basics were covered: mostly real time and historical data.

But because we always strive to improve the solution we are providing (even those for free like this one), we weren’t satisfied.

So we released vScope V2.

With HTML5, it was also a great step for a mobile version, providing even more information and in a clearer view for both desktop and mobile users.

And the support for API access was implemented, enabling you to import vScope data in your own monitoring software.

We also renewed vScope for a V3, but the changes were mainly on the infrastructure side to help us grow and maintain it while keeping performance at its best for you.

Hello 2023, hello vROps:

As a VMware user, you are familiar with vRealize Operations Manager (now called VMWare Aria Operations).

This tool from VMware allows you to monitor, detect and anticipate. Which is great, but it can be a bit overwhelming as a lot of its configuration relies on the user.

vRealize Operations Manager has been available since vSphere 6 at OVHcloud and is still available for our customer should they wish to enable, configure and use it.

But sometimes, as humans, we want more without doing a lot more. And that’s exactly where our new version of vScope arrives.

Our new configuration-less monitoring tool for our VMware customers is using VMWare Aria Operations, so in fact, we’re dropping “vScope” altogether and moving to “vROps”.

You get the immediate benefit of a software developed by the editor, made for his own products and deployed and maintained by OVHcloud, and enabled automatically on your VMware infrastructure hosted by OVHcloud.

This OVHcloud dashboard will appear in Dashboards > OVHcloud – Historical Dashboard.

As usual, you can easily monitor and identify patterns in CPU/memory usage, monitor storage usage and more.

You can also easily check which Virtual Machines are overprovisioned in terms of compute resources. And since you’ll be reducing the assigned (or even reserved) resources, you can use the freed cores/memory for even more VM and containers.

Without having to add physical servers to your cluster, so you optimize your usage and your budget.

You get the usual (real) real-time information, the historical data, the mobile friendly version, the API compatibility.

And on top of it: the ability to send emails in case of alerts, the option to personalize the dashboards with our Professional Services experts.

You can also create additional dashboards as you would have done in the past if you were using vROps already. This one will stay available for a quick general overview of your resources.

So we do hope that integrating vScope in vROps will satisfy you and provide you with even more insight and tools to get the best of your VMware on OVHcloud services.

Let us know directly in our Discord channel or through the usual Mailing List.

As much as « Tanzu » was expected and follows the release of Tanzu CE, the availability of vNKP can come as a surprise.

Let’s see TKGm first:
It is VMware implementation of Kubernetes (K8S) cluster independently of your environment : on-premises, dedicated Cloud or Public Cloud . This allows your K8S implementation to be under control and secure wherever you run it . You can simply move the TKGm configuration from one site/instance to the other.

With TKGm, sources are hosted, maintained and controled by VMware. That’s more security and stability.

And so it means that you can use your VMware Hosted Private Cloud managed by OVHcloud for your K8S clusters! Benefiting from both OVHcloud and VMware levels of security and reliability.

TKGm is different from the TKGs solution which requires access to the Vsphere layer. And some public instances do not allow this. TKGm gives you the freedom to run it wherever you want it.

In order to maintain interoperability, redundancy and to let you chose the tool you need (Innovation for freedom) OVHcloud proposes the Tanzu implementation on VMware with the least amount of constraints, with security, reversability and ease of migration.

Installation is simplified thanks to a pre-packaged Ubuntu image, ready to be configured. But you can still do it your own way.

Even if the VMware on OVHcloud platform is managed , you stay completely free to manage your containers within a standard offer as well as with our VSAN and NSX-T options.
You can benefit this way from the high-performance NVMe storage and/or the improved NSX-T security for you containers.

The platform being SecNumCloud qualified, your containers benefits from the ANSSI certification as well, should you use this environment.

We have a complete and detailed OVHcloud Hosted Private Cloud by VMware documentation, and should the need arise, our Professionnal Services team can assist you further.

Here you have our Installing Tanzu Kubernetes Grid guide and the official WMware Tanzu Kubernetes Grid documentation.

Let’s see vSphere Native Key Provider (vNKP), vSphere new integrated Key generator.

Included natively and free of charge in VSphere 7.0u2 (thanks to the Enterprise Plus license used at OVHCloud), vNKP brings to your VCenter server and your ESXi an all-incluse key generator and hosting solution for your encryption « at rest » and vTPM.

vNKP is an internal VMware mechanism and can not be accessed outside of your Vcenter/ESXi/VSphere . It is not a standard KMS (Key Management Server).

The immediat benefit is the increased security for your VM without having to subscibe a PCI-DSS or SecNumCloud offer and without having to purchase and maintain a 3rd party KMS… as long as you only use it for your VMware environment.

Integrating encryption key management to Vcenter/VSphere is a step forward increasing simplification of security management… thus increasing security. The easier it is to implement and manage security, the wider the adoption. Which in turn means a more secure platform.

Additionally, integrating the encryption key delivery to your existing platform saves you a lot of headaches regarding redundancy, resilience and access to the KMS. Handling all of these for an external or 3rd party KMS can be complicated, thus expensive. vNKP reduces the complexity of encryption key management for your VMWare environment.

Thanks to this free feature, all your VM can benefit from robust and secure encryption, and if you want to migrate from a 3rd party KMS to vNKP, a simple shallow key operation is required; there is no need for a complete decryption/new encryption process. Completely invisible for the users.

TPM 2.0 support is native through the use of vTPM. Your workload/VM requiring this level of security can now move to OVHcloud without having to invest on real servers on premises with a physical TPM chip.

Of course, as with a 3rd party KMS, regular backups of the key and configuration are highly recommended, but that is not a surprise…

Using vNKP and Vsphere « virtual machine encryption » service allows you not only to encrypt the VM but also their configuration files. This way, you get the benefits of a complete protection from unwanted tampering.

But that doesn’t protect you from data loss or corruption, so backups and/or replication are still highly recommended to recover and keep your business up and running.

For more information, see our guide and the official VMware documentation.

In conclusion, the OVHcloud / VMware platform keeps getting new features. The two described above allow you to migrate and deploy your containers easily on OVHCloud Hosted Private Cloud managed environment and reinforce security using the inegrated Vsphere Key Provider.

More features are coming soon (anyone said «TKGs » ?) and I will have the pleasure to describe them in another article.