I manage 30 Esxi hosts with around 800 VMs currently on vSphere Enterprise licensing. Our company is preparing for the worst case by employing a 3yr plan involving:

• Upgrading all perpetual lics still under contract to vsphere 8

(So we can run on unsupported vsphere 8 for up to 3yrs. if needed or until a resolution is found)

• Assigning members from QC, Cyber security and Systems as an exploratory solutions planning group who report to the CIO and CTO.

(So we can explore different hybrid solutions, assign them for evaluation and give feedback based on those findings annually)

• Hiring a Reseller partner of ours to do an audit plus an impact analysis in moving our environment from VMware to one of the exploratory solutions planning group recommendations.

(My company fancies getting ‘non-biased’ opinions from external sources, so we tolerate it)

• Building active-active, multi -master, active-passive and active-failover hybrid solutions including those with SaaS vendors for our highest value systems.

(While expensive to do, this option gives us a clear nuclear level fuck you to VMware should pricing become too outrageous and we decide to pull out of renewal)

In the end, we will probably give VMware a 3yr probation period, regardless of cost and have a clear migratory path before that time should we decide that VMware’s TCO is no longer viable.