Users of VMware vSphere 7.0 will receive a few more months of support than planned before this ageing version of VMware’s flagship finally reaches end-of-support (EOS) status. Broadcom’s business unit recently announced to customers that support is still guaranteed until October 2025.
The Register writes that users of vSphere 7.0 will receive six more months of support. The company itself reports the news via Reddit with a link to a page behind a login. EOS status was previously scheduled for April 2025 but has now been extended to October 2025.
This gives admins longer to upgrade to the newer versions of vSphere, version 8 or (in the future, perhaps) version 9. Version 7 of VMware’s main product has been on the market since 2020.
No specific reason
Broadcom gave no reason for the support extension. VMware has previously allowed support for older versions to continue. In 2021, support for vCenter 6.5 was extended by one year. This was partly because the company realized that admins had a lot of work to do during the pandemic, making upgrades more difficult to perform.
Right now, admins are busy implementing Broadcom’s new policies and their move from perpetual licenses to per-core subscriptions.
New licenses for AWS customers
Customers using on-demand hosts in the VMware Cloud through AWS should take note. Their licenses will expire on August 1 of this year.
The reseller agreement between AWS and VMware ended in April of this year, and with it, the option mentioned above. As an alternative, customers were allowed to buy an annual license before the service ended. VMware advised these customers to purchase these new licenses before July 26 to avoid closure.
Users of this service complained that they only received notices from Broadcom about this move as of July 12. Still, the company countered that it had previously sent messages about this and even extended the response time.
Also read: Gartner: plenty of hype for VMware exit, but patience needed