VMware vSphere 8 End Of Support Shift To VCF 9.1 ‘Our No. 1 Mission,’ Execs Say

‘Our No. 1 mission is to get our customers to [VCF] 9.1 so they’re fully protected against the security threats we’re up against with frontier AI now,” Laura Falko, VMware’s global partner program leader, tells CRN.

Broadcom is ending general support for VMware vSphere 8 licenses in October 2027 with the company’s main goal over the next 13 months to push VMware partners to drive customers to VMware Cloud Foundation 9.1.

“We have an end of support deadline against us here, and we need to get customers to [VCF] 9.1,” Laura Falko (pictured), VMware by Broadcom’s partner program leader, tells CRN.

“So our No. 1 mission is to get our customers to 9.1 so they’re fully protected against the security threats we’re up against with frontier AI now,” said Falko, head of global partner programs and partner marketing. “So they can take advantage of all the patches that are being put out there.”

VMware vSphere 8 perpetual license holders will no longer receive security patches for vulnerabilities after Oct. 11, 2027.

SHI International, one of VMware’s top global partners, is working across its entire VMware customer base to educate companies on the vSphere 8 end of support and explain the benefits of the VCF 9.1 private cloud platform.

“We’re avoiding the customer surprise that, ‘Oh wow, I need to get these patches every month, but I can’t do this if I’m not on VCF 9.1.’ So we’re actively having those conversations across our entire customer base,” said Ryan Sheehan, senior vice president of Advanced Solutions at Somerset, N.J.-based SHI.

“If a customer has an ELA or an agreement, we supply dedicated VMware resources to them and a customer experience rep that is with them for the whole term of the agreement with very specific VMware touchpoints,” said Sheehan.

“We can help hold each other accountable to hitting some of the milestones so they’re not caught off-guard for the end of life,” he added.

VMware Channel Chief: ‘More Funding Available To Help Customers’ Get To VCF 9.1

VMware’s worldwide channel chief, Brian Moats, told CRN that Broadcom is investing in partner incentives to help transition customers from vSphere 8 to VCF 9.1.

“Broadcom keeps making more and more funding available to help customers get to 9.1, which is a big priority for us,” said Moats, senior vice president of Global Commercial Sales and Partners.

This includes increased profitability for new workloads on VCF, new hands-on lab events across the globe and VMware’s “services entitlements,” which are bundled professional services for VCF purchases that only partners can provide.

“This is where we book a transaction and we take a portion of the software TCV [total contract value] and we reinvest that into service entitlements—which only our partners can deliver those services—and we fund it,” said Moats.

“That existed before but mostly in strategic and top end of corporate, but this year we expanded that down into other segments and into the top end of commercial,” he said. “So if there’s funding to go help customers turn on all the stuff on VCF 9.1, it reinforces the investments that partners have made ahead of demand and encourages them to go keep expanding.”

SHI Seeing VCF Success

VMware is incentivizing partners to move enterprises to VCF 9.1 due to what it says are the end-to-end private cloud platform’s capabilities.

VCF 9.1 is a private cloud platform that unifies virtual machines, Kubernetes and AI workload management for a full-stack integrated hardware and software solution.

Core products bundled inside VCF include vSphere, vSAN for storage virtualization, NSX for networking, vSphere Kubernetes Service, advanced automation, AI services, as well as a slew of security tools including VMware vDefend and Avi Load Balaner.

“Where we see customers who are in on VCF 9.1 is they’re over the emotion of price increases and they realize that it’s a fair trade,” said Sheehan. “It’s about explaining and figuring out how to realize the full value of the platform and not just bits and pieces.”

Sheehan said VCF “can be expensive, but once you start to actually deploy and rationalize the other tools and services that you’re using—it can become a very cost-effective and a very valuable way to deploy. And that's where we're seeing the success.”

Broadcom’s infrastructure software group—which includes VMware—generated $8.75 billion in revenue during the company’s third fiscal quarter of 2026. This represents a 29 percent growth rate year over year for Broadcom’s VMware software group.