Should you run VMware 7 unsupported?
Tierney – stock.adobe.com
In just a few weeks, VMware version 7 reaches end of life, which means Broadcom will no longer issue patches
After 2 October 2025, VMware version 7 will no longer be supported, and organisations will need to consider how they take their server virtualisation strategy forward.
Shane O’Rourke, senior director of global VMware support services at Spinnaker Support, said this deadline arrives at the same time as Broadcom’s wider licensing changes. He warned that while VMware customers with perpetual licenses may still have rights to download newer binaries, renewing support almost always means moving to a VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscription. This can be a costly upgrade, especially in organisations that are not using the full VMware suite.
“I’ve spoken to organisations trying to renew part of their footprint while transitioning the rest elsewhere, only to be told it’s all or nothing,” said O’Rourke. “Others were offered exceptions early on, only for those exceptions to be pulled at the last minute.”
The third-party support company has spoken to a number of organisations looking at options to continue running VMware 7. From the feedback he has received, O’Rourke said: “There’s a lack of trust.”
While Broadcom has made it clear it is simplifying the VMware product portfolio, by stopping perpetual licensing of VMware and bundling products into VCF subscription, he said people were concerned about what Broadcom planned to do going forward. For IT leaders looking at their VMware estate long-term, O’Rourke added: “This can be a gamble. In the old VMware world, when you were building your software-defined datacentre, you could adopt VMware components taking a pick-and-mix approach in order to be successful within your environment.
“Whereas, when Broadcom moved to VCF, customers had no choice what to take on, even if they weren’t going to use some of the VMware products,” he said.
For some organisations, this approach is leading to price hikes, because they are having to pay for products they do not require. All of this is well understood, but two years ago, when Broadcom acquired VMware, version 7 was the most prevalent and most stable version of the virtualisation platform, even though version 8 had been released. “Now, with the move to VCF from VMware 8 onwards, for a lot of customers, version 7 is the last version they have on a perpetual licence,” said O’Rourke.
While some organisations may be entitled to upgrade to version 8, he said they will no longer receive patches and updates for version 7, even if they have a VMware support contract. Customers with perpetual licenses may still have rights to download newer versions of VMware, but according to O’Rourke, renewing support almost always means moving to subscription.
VMware vSphere sits at the centre of most environments; when failures occur, they rarely stay contained to a single component. In his experience, unexpected product defects, subtle interoperability issues or behaviour changes introduced elsewhere in the ecosystem can create problems that would normally be escalated to VMware engineering. However, after 2 October, that option disappears for VMware version 7.
As a company offering third-party support, O’Rourke said that while it cannot provide patches, Spinnaker Support has plenty of experience maintaining a stable environment for its customers.
Instead of tackling the issue from a product viewpoint, he said: “We look at how a customer has adapted VMware in their environment. How has it been configured? What are their use cases?
O’Rourke said the approach has been a success. “I can honestly say I have not seen any issue that we haven’t been able to fix within a customer’s environment,” he added.
