Introduction

In today’s evolving digital landscape, high availability and a robust hybrid cloud strategy are critical for modern enterprises. Azure VMware Solution (AVS) embodies these principles by enabling organisations to run their VMware-based workloads on Azure’s dedicated infrastructure. This approach allows businesses to extend their on‑premises environments to the cloud without sacrificing the familiarity of their existing VMware tools.

Across this six-part series, we will guide you through every stage—from an introductory overview of AVS to the final migration of workloads into AVS. In this initial instalment, we introduce AVS, explain its purpose, outline its core components, and discuss recent licensing reforms that may affect deployment strategies.

Broadcom Licensing Changes: What You Need to Know

A recent announcement by Broadcom has introduced significant changes to the minimum core count requirements for VMware licensing. Under the new rules, starting from April 10, organisations will face a dramatic increase in the minimum core count that must be licensed:

• Example 1:
  For a customer with a single-processor server hosting 8 cores, the new licensing requirements will mandate licensing for 72 cores. This steep increase has the potential to substantially drive up costs for smaller deployments.

• Example 2:
  For larger organisations, consider a scenario with 5 dual-processor servers, each with 16 cores (totalling 160 cores). In this case, the new minimum core count may have a minimal relative impact since the total core count already exceeds the new threshold.

Implications for Different Organisations

• Smaller Organisations:
  Smaller deployments may feel a pronounced cost impact as they transition from a modest core count to the new minimum licensing requirements. This change might drive smaller organisations to re-evaluate whether maintaining a traditional on‑premises deployment or migrating to AVS is more cost‑effective.

• Larger Deployments:
  Larger enterprises typically operate at a scale where the increased minimum counts have a relatively smaller impact on overall costs. This scenario allows them to leverage the cost‑efficient scalability and integrated cloud services that AVS offers.

These licensing changes underscore the wider industry shift and provide a compelling reason for organisations—especially smaller ones—to adopt Azure VMware Solution as a flexible, scalable alternative.

What Is Azure VMware Solution (AVS)?

Azure VMware Solution is a fully managed service that allows you to run your VMware workloads natively in the Azure cloud. By leveraging AVS, organisations can seamlessly extend or migrate their on‑premises VMware environments into Azure, utilising the same familiar tools and operational practices. The key components of AVS include:

• vSphere:
  The industry‑leading virtualisation platform that underpins your cloud-based VMs.

• vSAN:
  A hyper‑converged, software‑defined storage solution that aggregates local storage for high‑performance, resilient data services.

• NSX:
  A network virtualisation and security platform that provides micro‑segmentation, advanced load balancing, and network automation.

• vCenter:
  The centralised management tool that enables you to configure, monitor, and manage your VMware infrastructure just as you would on‑premises.

These components work together to offer an environment where existing VMware workloads can be deployed and managed on Azure, thereby delivering the benefits of both on‑premises and cloud worlds.

Azure VMware Solutions Costs & Licensing

For up to date pricing visit the AVS Pricing page.

At the time of writing this was the current pricing for AVS deployed in Australia East Region in Australian Dollars

A minimum of three nodes are required to deploy Azure VMware Solutions Private Cloud. Pricing shown above reflects single-node pricing only. This pricing covers VMware costs of NSX-T, vSphere, vSAN and HCX Enterprise.

Conclusion

Azure VMware Solution presents a transformative opportunity for organisations seeking a hybrid cloud model without the need to abandon their existing VMware investments. By integrating well‑known VMware tools with Azure’s global, dedicated infrastructure, AVS delivers robust performance and high availability. However, with Broadcom’s recent licensing changes, the landscape is evolving—prompting smaller organisations to carefully consider the increased minimum core count against the benefits of cloud scalability and managed services.

This instalment has introduced you to AVS, its main components, and the critical impact that licensing reforms will have on deployment strategies. In the next part of our series, we will take a deeper dive into the architecture of AVS and unravel the intricacies of its infrastructure.

Learn More

• Azure VMware Solution Overview
• Azure Hybrid Cloud – Transitioning to AVS
• Understanding VMware Licensing Changes
• Azure Service Level Agreements