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Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

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Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#111

Post by Panzer04 »

remus wrote: post #53
GlacierFox wrote: post #13

Why would you self sabotage such a considerable contract? Are Broadcom stupid?

It does seem an odd move. No doubt they're going to milk existing customers for everything they're worth, but they're going to create a generation of people who will never buy anything from them ever again. That guy who's busting his balls to migrate off VMWare because of the price hike is gonna be the CTO in 10 years time, and when he's making that 10m USD purchasing decision they're gonna stay well away from anythi…

That's why broadcom bought the company he went with instead.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#112

Post by alexjurkiewicz »

sqircles wrote: post #99

I worked in software acquisitions for a large organization and it was really eye opening to see how insane some of these companies are when it comes to pricing customers out. I always wondered - what is the motive? They make pricing structure changes that aren't even considerable for any organization that has any fashion of a budget. VMWare was one example where our already insane costs that had nearly tripled over t…

It might take a large org several years to migrate off core systems like VMWare. If you think the customer is likely to churn within a few years anyway it makes economic sense to hike their fee.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#113

Post by _DeadFred_ »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #109
sqircles wrote: post #99

I worked in software acquisitions for a large organization and it was really eye opening to see how insane some of these companies are when it comes to pricing customers out. I always wondered - what is the motive? They make pricing structure changes that aren't even considerable for any organization that has any fashion of a budget. VMWare was one example where our already insane costs that had nearly tripled over t…

It's hard (=expensive) to change all the internal infrastructure or sometimes even internal processes, and if companies manage to stay just a bit cheaper than their custumers cost to rewrite "everything", they'll get the money. Even if some customers do so, with the price hike, they still earn more from the ones who don't.

There is also risk introduced by change. Risk is very scary when you are in management.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#114

Post by lovich »

noisy_boy wrote: post #85
fsuts wrote: post #23

”Tesco, a retail conglomerate headquartered in the United Kingdom” For any non Uk people, it’s the largest supermarket in Uk. Combination of large stores and smaller high street convenience stores. (2nd largest was owned by Walmart who sold it recently to private equity and so now it’s saddled with debt and being ruined…).

It has decent presence in some parts of South East Asia as well via JVs e.g. Tesco Lotus in Thailand.

Didn’t realize they were behind Lotus. I also liked the refrigerated meals they would heat up for you right in the store.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#115

Post by donavanm »

nix0n wrote: post #105
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Containers do not reduce reliance on VMs, really. Those containers still need a server to run on, and that server is almost certainly going to be a VM and not bare metal.

> that server is almost certainly going to be a VM and not bare metal I understand that this is normal but I've never understood it. If all the containers are running the same company's applications (so they don't care about security boundaries between them), what's the difference between having all the containers under the same kernel vs separate kernels?

The VM layer gives you an aspect of fungibility that commodity hardware doesn’t. It’s being able to over provision, dynamically reallocate hardware resources, or do things like live migration and entire system snapshots. That hardware/system management aspect is what VM’s give you and containers don’t.

Note: if you want to conflate “containers“ with an entire job management and scheduling system (“k8s”) then you’re not actually talking about the current target customer for VMware.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#116

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

lokar wrote: post #103

I’m surprised by the comments here. The Broadcom business model (outside the chip business) had been pretty well known, and they don’t really hide it. They are tech bottom feeders. They find large businesses with a decent moat and free cash flow but are in long term decline (and wasting cash trying to find something new). They buy them, cut development, support and marginal products. Raise prices and squeeze as much…

It’s the same modus operandi as private equity but worse, because Broadcom has the money and technical resources to do interesting things with the technology, but they don’t.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#117

Post by lokar »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #116
lokar wrote: post #103

I’m surprised by the comments here. The Broadcom business model (outside the chip business) had been pretty well known, and they don’t really hide it. They are tech bottom feeders. They find large businesses with a decent moat and free cash flow but are in long term decline (and wasting cash trying to find something new). They buy them, cut development, support and marginal products. Raise prices and squeeze as much…

It’s the same modus operandi as private equity but worse, because Broadcom has the money and technical resources to do interesting things with the technology, but they don’t.

KKR bought Avago, which bought Broadcom and took the name.

They are a PE firm

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#118

Post by pdpi »

sandworm101 wrote: post #101
fsuts wrote: post #23

”Tesco, a retail conglomerate headquartered in the United Kingdom” For any non Uk people, it’s the largest supermarket in Uk. Combination of large stores and smaller high street convenience stores. (2nd largest was owned by Walmart who sold it recently to private equity and so now it’s saddled with debt and being ruined…).

And it has no US comparison. The tesco meal deal concept, the literal wall of choices, just doesnt exist in north america. I did a big work trip to the UK a couple years back with over 100 people. I tried to explain meal deals and nobody believed me. Then our people basically stripped the meal deal shelves of the tesco express beside our hotel.

What's so unbelievable about meal deals? It seems like a really straightforward bundle purchase.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#119

Post by zelon88 »

firesteelrain wrote: post #81

I don’t know how anyone can afford these migrations especially for production on prem workloads without building literally duplicate sets of hardware clusters then manually migrate workloads.

The 40k servers are probably made up of multiple redundant vSphere clusters with failover. You simply take one of those redundant clusters and migrate one half of it over. Then the other half. Then duplicate that process. As you build more compute in the new stack, you can decomission more and more of the old stack and convert it. The transition would progress like a cascade, with larger and larger groups of clusters being migrated at once until you're left with the one-off, ad-hoc, weirdo clusters at the end that need to be manually migrated (usually with great effort).

The actual hardware servers are clustered together into pools of resources. The pools are where the VMs live. The bigger the new pool becomes, the faster you can empty the old one. So the migration starts very slowly, ramps up quickly, and then tapers off.

Re: Tesco moving 40k server workloads off VMware amid Broadcom's abusive conduct

#120

Post by [deleted] »

lokar wrote: post #117
SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the same modus operandi as private equity but worse, because Broadcom has the money and technical resources to do interesting things with the technology, but they don’t.

KKR bought Avago, which bought Broadcom and took the name. They are a PE firm

[deleted]
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