Microsoft is poised to retire the “licenses included” edition of its Azure VMware Solution (AVS). It was one of the last remaining avenues to obtain VMware products outside the Broadcom-mandated bundled offerings.
Until now, AVS stood as a premier alternative for organizations wanting to keep their VMware environments in the cloud without moving to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), Broadcom’s flagship hybrid cloud suite.
The Microsoft cloud offering thus included licenses for vCenter, vSAN, vSphere, and NSX, but did not include the Software-Defined Datacenter Manager, the tool used by Broadcom to centralize management of its leading VCF offering.
As an example, licenses for vSphere Foundation are almost never sold alone, unless bundled into a broader agreement that includes VCF.
“Bring Your Own License” (BYOL), the new norm
Other cloud giants had already had to adapt to this requirement, announced by Broadcom at the end of last year.
Microsoft clarified the timeline for winding down its historical service:
> October 31, 2026: end of sales of the AVS version including licenses.
> August 30, 2027 deadline for current customers, who will need to have acquired a VCF license and completed their transition.
Microsoft is urging its users to plan this migration as soon as possible. “Plan enough time to purchase VCF licenses from Broadcom and complete the transition to AVS VCF BYOL,” the publisher cautions.
Customers evaluating modernization opportunities are invited to analyze their AVS environments immediately and to develop a roadmap to avoid any service interruption on August 31, 2027, the date on which their current installations will stop functioning.
