Continues to Expect Transaction Will Close on Schedule

SAN JOSE, Calif., Aug. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions, today affirmed its expectation that its acquisition of VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) will close on October 30, 2023, and provided an update on its progress with various regulatory agencies.

On August 21, 2023, Broadcom received final transaction approval from the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority. This follows legal merger clearance in the European Union, as well as in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan, and foreign investment control clearance in all necessary jurisdictions. In the U.S., the Hart-Scott-Rodino pre-merger waiting periods have expired, and there is no legal impediment to closing under U.S. merger regulations.

Broadcom continues to work constructively with regulators in other jurisdictions and is in the advanced stages of the process toward obtaining the remaining required regulatory approvals, which Broadcom believes will be received before October 30, 2023. Accordingly, together with VMware, Broadcom has agreed to further extend the Outside Date as contemplated in the transaction agreement, as will be further described in a Form 8-K to be filed by VMware with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Broadcom is confident that the combination with VMware will enhance competition in the cloud and benefit enterprise customers by giving them more choice and control over where they locate their workloads.

About Broadcom Inc.
Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), a Delaware corporation headquartered in San Jose, CA, is a global technology leader that designs, develops and supplies a broad range of semiconductor and infrastructure software solutions. Broadcom's category-leading product portfolio serves critical markets including data center, networking, enterprise software, broadband, wireless, storage and industrial. Our solutions include data center networking and storage, enterprise, mainframe and cybersecurity software focused on automation, monitoring and security, smartphone components, telecoms and factory automation. For more information, go to https://www.broadcom.com.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This communication relates to a proposed business combination transaction between Broadcom Inc. ("Broadcom") and VMware, Inc. ("VMware"). This communication includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and Section 27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended. These forward-looking statements include but are not limited to statements that relate to the expected future business and financial performance, the anticipated benefits of the proposed transaction, the anticipated impact of the proposed transaction on the combined business, the expected amount and timing of the synergies from the proposed transaction, and the anticipated closing date of the proposed transaction. These forward-looking statements are identified by words such as "will," "expect," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "should," "intend," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "aim," and similar words or phrases. These forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and beliefs of Broadcom management and current market trends and conditions.

These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that are outside Broadcom's control and may cause real results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: the effect of the proposed transaction on our ability to maintain relationships with customers, suppliers and other business partners or operating results and business; the ability to implement plans, achieve forecasts and meet other expectations with respect to the business after the completion of the proposed transaction and realize expected synergies; business disruption following the proposed transaction; difficulties in retaining and hiring key personnel and employees due to the proposed transaction and business combination; the diversion of management time on transaction-related issues; the satisfaction of the conditions precedent to completion of the proposed transaction, including the ability to secure regulatory approvals on the terms expected, at all or in a timely manner; significant indebtedness, including indebtedness incurred in connection with the proposed transaction, and the need to generate sufficient cash flows to service and repay such debt; the disruption of current plans and operations; the outcome of legal proceedings related to the transaction; the ability to complete the proposed transaction on a timely basis or at all; the ability to successfully integrate VMware's operations; cyber-attacks, information security and data privacy; global political and economic conditions, including cyclicality in the semiconductor industry and in Broadcom's other target markets, rising interest rates, the impact of inflation and challenges in manufacturing and the global supply chain; the impact of public health crises, such as pandemics (including COVID-19) and epidemics and any related company or government policies and actions to protect the health and safety of individuals or government policies or actions to maintain the functioning of national or global economies and markets; and events and trends on a national, regional and global scale, including those of a political, economic, business, competitive and regulatory nature.

These risks, as well as other risks related to the proposed transaction, are included in the registration statement on Form S-4 and proxy statement/prospectus that has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") in connection with the proposed transaction. While the list of factors presented here is, and the list of factors presented in the registration statement on Form S-4 are, considered representative, no such list should be considered to be a complete statement of all potential risks and uncertainties. For additional information about other factors that could cause real results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Broadcom's and VMware's respective periodic reports and other filings with the SEC, including the risk factors identified in Broadcom's and VMware's most exact Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Annual Reports on Form 10-K. The forward-looking statements included in this communication are made only as of the date hereof. Neither Broadcom nor VMware undertakes any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.

No Offer or Solicitation

This communication is not intended to and shall not constitute an offer to buy or sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy or sell any securities, or a solicitation of any vote or approval, nor shall there be any sale of securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. No offering of securities shall be made, except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of Section 10 of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Additional Information about the Transaction and Where to Find It

In connection with the proposed transaction, Broadcom has filed with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 that includes a proxy statement of VMware and that also constitutes a prospectus of Broadcom. Each of Broadcom and VMware may also file other relevant documents with the SEC regarding the proposed transaction. The registration statement was declared effective by the SEC on October 3, 2022 and the definitive proxy statement/prospectus has been mailed to VMware shareholders. This document is not a substitute for the proxy statement/prospectus or registration statement or any other document that Broadcom or VMware may file with the SEC. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS ARE URGED TO READ THE REGISTRATION STATEMENT, PROXY STATEMENT/ PROSPECTUS AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS THAT MAY BE FILED WITH THE SEC, AS WELL AS ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS TO THESE DOCUMENTS, CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY IF AND WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN OR WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the registration statement and proxy statement/prospectus and other documents containing important information about Broadcom, VMware and the proposed transaction once such documents are filed with the SEC through the website maintained by the SEC at https://www.sec.gov. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by Broadcom may be obtained free of charge on Broadcom's website at https://investors.broadcom.com. Copies of the documents filed with the SEC by VMware may be obtained free of charge on VMware's website at ir.vmware.com.

Contact:
Ji Yoo
Broadcom Inc.
Investor Relations
408-433-8000
investor.relations@broadcom.com

(AVGO-Q)

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SOURCE Broadcom Inc.

The Federal Trade Commission continues to drag its feet on approving Broadcom Inc.’s acquisition of VMware Inc. Ironically, in our view, these delays only hurt the very competitive environment the FTC claims to be protecting.

The artificial intelligence era is accelerating at a breakneck pace and the Big Three hyperscale cloud vendors already have a sizable lead on legacy incumbents. If preserving competition is truly the agenda of the U.S. government, it should recognize that VMware, its enterprise ecosystem and market forces have the potential to neutralize cross-cloud complexity and deliver customers a viable alternative to increasingly powerful public cloud players.

In this Breaking Analysis and ahead of VMWare Explore 2023, we revisit our views on Broadcom’s rationale and likely actions post-acquisition. We’ll share current Enterprise Technology Research survey data to place VMware’s position in context to the major cloud players, speculate on its AI agenda and deliver a preview of next week’s VMware Explore. To do so, we welcome theCUBE analyst Rob Strechay and a friend of theCUBE, Zeus Kerravala, principal of ZK Research.

Why VMware dovetails with Broadcom’s strategy

Broadcom has a dizzyingly successful track record of mergers and acquisitions, including LSI, Symantec, Emulex, Computer Associates and dozens of other firms that Chief Executive Hock Tan has orchestrated. As shown in this Broadcom slide above, the company looks for leading firms with a sustainable advantage, loyal installed bases, and proven and predictable operating histories. Broadcom, as shown on the highlighted bottom right corner, is targeting $8.5 billion in EBITDA contribution from VMware post-acquisition.

Unpacking Hock Tan’s statements

Some of the things Hock Tan has said about his strategy and the VMware acquisition are shown below.

He has said many times, for example that “we don’t compete directly in CPUs… essentially we don’t play in games we can’t win.” He has also laid out his premise for VMware — a multicloud approach for customers that absolutely need or want some portion of their data to stay on-premises. Above, he uses the term sovereign cloud, a play off the phrase data sovereignty.

And the last point above recognizes the importance of the ecosystem in extending VMware’s value proposition and providing alternatives to the public cloud It’s a clear indication Hock Tan understands and values VMware’s ecosystem.

There was hope that the VMware deal would close by VMware Explore. Broadcom has said it will close by this fiscal year, which ends in October and perhaps it gets pushed into next fiscal year.

Here’s a summary of the analysts’ views on the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. The acquisition stands out for several reasons:

• Nature of acquisition: VMware isn’t just another software company. It’s a ubiquitous staple of enterprise information technology, generating substantial revenue. While there are similarities to other Broadcom software acquisitions, like a loyal installed base and a predictable maintenance stream, VMware differs significantly from earlier acquisitions.
  • Historical comparison: Many previous acquisitions by Broadcom were seen as companies past their prime. This perspective might apply to the virtualization industry, but VMware is poised for another growth wave, particularly with the emergence of multicloud.
  • Strategic position: We believe VMware is uniquely positioned to attack the complexity across multiple clouds, distinguishing it from Broadcom’s other software acquisitions in that it has significant prospects for growth.
• Post-acquisition scenario: Broadcom’s plan post-acquisition is to integrate its current software business under the VMware umbrella, broadly creating a company with multiple chip design entities and a distinct software business.
  • Rationalizing software stack: The real opportunity for Broadcom financially lies in consolidating the software stack. Our premise is that once VMware becomes the central software asset, Broadcom will focus its research and development on a roadmap that is attractive to customers and can clearly throw of cash.
• Broadcom’s investment approach: In our view, Broadcom will narrow VMware’s R&D focus. Observing Hock Tan, we believe the following:
  • Investment strategy: Broadcom’s strategy involves identifying companies with a competitive edge or “moat” and fueling them with adequate but focused R&D resources. The aim is to make the business case for customers to stay on its platform more appealing than leaving and incurring switching costs and risk.

Bottom line: The acquisition of VMware by Broadcom signifies a strategic extension of Broadcom’s investment approach to add more software acquisitions. We don’t believe Broadcom necessarily has a target mix of software and semiconductor revenue, rather it’s looking for good businesses that fit its business model. VMware, with its potential for growth and positioning in the multicloud arena, can be a pivotal component for Broadcom’s future. The challenge remains in how Broadcom will streamline and optimize its vast software offerings post-acquisition.

Comparing Broadcom’s enviable income statement with VMware’s

The chart above compares the trailing-12-month revenue and other key metrics for the two companies. For people not familiar with Broadcom, this snapshot is astounding. Broadcom is a $34 billion company with nearly 50% free cash flow margin and only 20,000 employees. Its revenue per employee is an incredible $1.7 million. This financial performance is why the company’s market value is an impressive 10 times its revenue.

VMware is a $13 billion company with 38,000 employees. Its revenue per headcount is $350,000, which is actually quite good for a software company. But given Broadcom’s pro forma target of $8.5 billion of EBITDA contribution that means to be a positive for Broadcom, VMware’s performance will have to blend more closely with Broadcom’s financials.

Here’s a summary of the analysts’ take on VMware and the potential strategies to integrate and optimize the acquired assets.

• Broadcom’s operating model:
  • Autonomy: Broadcom’s approach will keep VMware as a separate business unit to stand on its own merit. Broadcom rarely if ever allows a business unit to rely on other parts of its business. Rather, it expects a business unit to be independent and perform without assistance from other divisions.
  • Streamlining headcount: Broadcom will almost certainly reduce headcount. Unlike the typical technology firm which relies on marketing to hype its products, Broadcom is circumspect with its marketing spend.
  • Customer value: Broadcom could potentially offer VMware customers better deals for expanding their business volume. Spend more and you’ll get a better deal.
  • System approach: There’s value in consolidating various VMware assets to offer holistic solutions that attack the complexity of hybrid multiclouds. This integrated approach can simplify deployment and offer more value to the customers.

Bottom line: Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware presents a strategic opportunity to leverage VMware’s unique position in the emerging multicloud era. Through careful integration, reorganization and a systems approach, Broadcom has the potential to streamline VMware assets and drive value, optimizing VMware’s offerings with better focus.

The importance of multicloud to VMware’s future

Broadcom has emphasized phase 3 of VMware’s growth as multicloud and a platform for applications. The slide below was created before the AI craze, so there may or may not be some marketing adjustments to Broadcom’s positioning. Regardless, we know VMware is betting on solving multicloud chaos.

In the following section we assess the degree to which multicloud complexity is a real problem and what VMware’s advantages are in the market.

• Ecosystem play for VMware:
  • Focus on multicloud: VMware in our view must refine its understanding of multicloud and identify how it can stand out in the market. There’s potential in having a multicloud management stack, given the tools from major cloud providers (such as Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp.’s Azure and Google Cloud Platform) don’t interoperate.
  • Existing partnerships: There’s significant use of VMware with other tech giants. For instance, 80% of OpenShift globally is deployed on VMware. As such, VMware’s ecosystem is a critical advantage for the company.
• The complexity of multicloud as an opportunity:
  • Need for a single cloud fabric: The rise of edge computing necessitates a unifying cloud fabric spanning multiple cloud providers, fostering competition.
  • Normalization: VMware’s vCenter is a pivotal tool for data centers. With the advent of containers, many prefer VMware integrated containers thanks to the control offered by vCenter. This makes vCenter a potential control point for supercloud/multicloud.
• Challenges and competition in multicloud:
  • Cloud service provider tools: Each major cloud service provider’s tools are confined to their respective ecosystem, and there’s little chance they’ll create federated tools. This opens a significant gap in the market that VMware can fill.
  • Gradual erosion: While VMware’s vCenter provides familiarity and standardization, cloud providers are slowly reducing the exclusive value that tools such as vCenter bring. Yet this erosion presents a win-win scenario for the industry since it means more cloud usage.
  • The role of cloud providers: Major cloud providers are likely indifferent to who facilitates multicloud, as their primary objective is to increase usage and sell more compute and storage.

Bottom line: VMware is well-positioned to play a critical role in the multicloud or supercloud era. However, its success hinges on how effectively the company can integrate, adapt and leverage current assets, especially vCenter, in the ever-evolving cloud landscape. The slowness of the FTC’s decision on the acquisition is not helpful to accelerating customer value and competition.

How viable is the rationale that VMware creates competition for the hyperscalers?

Below is a graphic from ETR that puts VMware’s position in context. On the vertical axis is Net Score or spending momentum. The horizontal axis represents the pervasiveness in the data set and the overlap that these platforms have in the survey of more than 1,700 IT decision makers. The red dotted line at 40% indicates a highly elevated Net Score.

The key points are that the Big Three clouds have the momentum and Azure and that AWS has a dominant market presence. But look at VMware all the way to the right. There’s a 50% overlap meaning half of the accounts cited that they are running VMware. So VMware’s presence is comparable to Microsoft and AWS.

We’re also showing the positions of solutions in VMware’s portfolio with VMware Cloud on AWS as the most prominent on the Y axis. And you can see the others.

What follows is a summary of the analyst discussion including the position of VMware relative to the hyperscalers and the utility of the balance of VMware’s portfolio – for example, vSAN, NSX, VCF, Carbon Black and others.

• Cloud provider lock-in:
  • Hotel California scenario: Once customers choose a cloud provider, or hyperscaler, they find it challenging to switch due to various complexities and costs involved.
  • Potential VMware solution: If VMware can successfully abstract and normalize the different cloud providers, it could promote competition by allowing easier data migration between platforms such as AWS and Azure. This would mitigate the lock-in effect currently experienced by customers.
• Exploring VMware’s portfolio and partnerships:
  • Feedback and perception: VMware has a broad product portfolio, including tools such as vSAN, NSX, VCF and Carbon Black. Some of these may be candidates for asset de-levering. Regardless, VMware has strong partnerships, with more than 3,000 managed service providers building on its stack. This includes major players such as OVH, VMware’s former cloud play. These relationships in our view are absolutely competitive with hyperscale clouds and represent an attractive opportunity to differentiate based around issues related to latency and legal compliance.
• Competitive advantage:
  • Creating moats: VMware is seemingly creating a competitive edge or “moat” in the container market. They are focusing on storage with vSAN and making it essential to integrate with their Container Storage Integration or CSI module when using storage through Tanzu. As it stands, VMware’s CSI driver is necessary for those containers.
  • Historical limitations: Previously, EMC had restrained VMware, particularly in its aggressive deployment of vSAN. VMware’s now has more latitude to drive storage growth.
• Ecosystem expansion:
  • Extending VMware partnerships: We believe VMware has an opportunity to expand its ecosystem particularly into the data stack. We’ll address this later in the research.
  • FTC’s misunderstanding: The FTC seemingly has gaps in its understanding of how VMware operates in the cloud marketplace and competes with other giants.

Bottom line: VMware’s potential to reshape the multicloud landscape is evident, especially with its tools and partnerships. However, its success hinges on strategic decisions, especially regarding its product portfolio and partnerships, and understanding and adapting to regulatory landscapes.

What is VMware’s AI play?

Our observations suggest that Hock Tan is not a big hype guy. He doesn’t make decisions based on market chatter. So when he’s asked about AI, he most certainly doesn’t AI-wash. He looks at AI as just another workload and something that will make infrastructure run better. But if VMware is going to be a platform for app development, it will have to unveil its AI strategy at VMware Explore.

Let’s look at how VMware stacks up against the hyperscalers in AI accounts.

The chart above has the same XY – spending velocity and market presence and the same platform comparisons. The difference is the data is filtered on 574 AI accounts in the ETR data set. There are two interesting points in the data that stand out:

1. VMware affinity in AI accounts jumps from 50% in the overall market to 56% overlap in these AI accounts.
2. But the public cloud players’ position in terms of market presence is even stronger.

In last week’s Breaking Analysis, we laid out the case for on-prem versus public clouds in terms of where customers will run large language models. And the conclusion was that the cloud players had a clear lead in terms of innovation, optionality and functionality… but the incumbent on-prem players have the advantage of customers wanting more control given the fear, uncertainty and doubt around intellectual property leakage, legal and related risks. And edge is a latency game that is wide open.

Here’s our analysis and summary of the challenges and potential of incorporating AI in on-premises solutions and how it could shape the future of VMware and the broader IT landscape.

• Building an AI platform:
  • Limitations: Constructing a complete AI platform from scratch is complex. While collaborating with Broadcom may facilitate part of this endeavor, it doesn’t provide a holistic solution. AI, especially when implemented on-prem, requires a comprehensive integration of multiple components.
• AI impact on network spend:
  • Recent trends: Cisco’s latest earnings call revealed an increase in network spending, some of it driven by AI. This suggests that AI implementations will prompt organizations to bolster their network infrastructure.
  • AI’s evolving role: AI’s role is projected to transition from being an occasional specialized requirement to a regular operational necessity. This shift might trigger a vast overhaul or refresh in customer technology portfolios
• VMware’s position in the AI landscape is strong but lacks a data play:
  • Technological capability: VMware possesses much of the requisite technology to assemble an AI-centric data center stack. Its position in data, however, is weak.
  • Partnerships: Although VMware has a strong partner network, there seem to be gaps, particularly in the data domain and up the stack software. VMware Explore might shed light on how the company plans to bolster its partnerships to offer AI in a more streamlined manner.
• Ecosystem’s role:
  • Predictions for AI uptake: We expect a surge in AI adoption toward the end of the year. However, this isn’t anticipated to be solely because of direct AI applications, but thanks to associated requirements such as enhanced compute and storage capabilities.

Bottom line: AI is increasingly influencing the IT landscape, with ramifications on spending patterns and technology adoption. Although VMware seems poised to leverage this trend, the success might hinge on how effectively they can address software gaps and fortify data partnerships to provide more competitive AI solutions.

AI players in VMware accounts

One of the things we hear from developers is that they really like the innovation in the public cloud. They especially point to the optionality of AI. For example, having access to foundation models in a repo such as Bedrock on Amazon is appealing. And we’re seeing the striking ascendency of OpenAI adoption. The chart shows the Net Score and presence of AI platforms within a filter of 886 VMware accounts. It gives us an indication of which tools are popular in those accounts and presumably represents some of the partners that VMware should target.

First, look at OpenAI: It has overtaken all vendors in the ETR data set across the board in terms of spending velocity with an 87% Net Score – and a very high N – second only to Microsoft, which is its biggest partner.

The hyperscalers are prominent as well and VMware partners with each of them. You can see the other players such as Databricks Inc., Dataiku Inc., Anaconda Inc., SparkCognition Inc. and the like.

But when we think about VMware’s ecosystem we think first about Dell Technologies Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., IBM Corp., NetApp Inc., Pure Storage Inc., Veeam Inc. and many others that are lower in the stack. The hyperscalers are also strong partners of VMware because of VMware’s massive presence in the market.

But you don’t typically think of these AI names shown above. The question we debated is: How does VMware become relevant in AI? And what are the challenges and prospects related to developing a full-fledged AI infrastructure?

• AI infrastructure challenges:
  • Incomplete stack: Although companies can potentially develop the base AI infrastructure using VMware and ecosystem tools, they face challenges when trying to utilize it effectively. Specifically, though the lower-level infrastructure can be managed, gaps exist in higher-level tooling and data platform offerings.
  • VMware moves: Can VMware better leverage open-source solutions such as Spark or Delta Lake from Databricks within a VMware setting, and how that would be managed?
• Role of networking in AI:
  • Connect-centric shift: With the evolution of technology, there’s a shift from a compute-centric to a connect-centric environment, emphasizing the importance of networking. This is fundamental to Broadcom’s offerings and a key component of the company’s success where it focuses on connectivity rather than trying to compete in CPUs.
  • Embedded networking: There’s a consensus that networking should be an integral part of the AI infrastructure from the beginning, as retrofitting can be challenging. Newer networking solutions such as Ultra Ethernet can complement existing platforms such as InfiniBand, and VMware can take advantage.
• VMware’s AI strategy:
  • Ecosystem dependence: Historically, many players in the tech ecosystem have depended on VMware thanks to its dominant presence. However, in the AI sector, VMware lacks that commanding position. To establish a foothold, VMware must proactively engage and collaborate to create a robust AI ecosystem.
  • On-premises advantage: If AI frameworks such as Databricks opt to run on-premises, VMware could emerge as a vital ally. However, there’s a need to streamline these integrations, possibly through managed services.
  • Sovereign cloud opportunity: With the advent of many smaller, specialized clouds, VMware can position itself as a supercloud, providing an alternative to the major players such as AWS, Google and Azure.
• Ecosystem’s desire for alternatives:
  • The tech ecosystem seeks alternatives to dominant cloud providers such as AWS. There’s an apparent need for competition in the sector to avoid monopolistic tendencies and to cater to diverse requirements.

Bottom line: As AI becomes increasingly integral to the IT landscape, challenges and opportunities arise in equal measure. For companies such as VMware, strategic partnerships, leveraging open-source solutions and emphasizing networking can pave the way for a stronger AI presence. The tech ecosystem also seems ripe for diversification, potentially favoring entities that can offer competitive alternatives to industry giants.

Expectations for VMware Explore

Let’s close with some expectations for VMware Explore next week.

We don’t expect to hear much on the Broadcom acquisition, but we definitely expect to hear more about VMware’s AI play. It’s compulsory in any tech event these days. We’ll also hear about VMware’s cross cloud services and related product extensions around Tanzu, Aria and other developer projects. And it’s likely we’ll hear many incremental enhancements to the core – for example vSphere, vSAN, NSX and the like. We’ll be listening for any updates on Project Monterey and of course the ecosystem showcase.

Here’s a summary of the analyst discussion on these topics.

Keep in touch

Many thanks to Alex Myerson and Ken Shifman on production, podcasts and media workflows for Breaking Analysis. Special thanks to Kristen Martin and Cheryl Knight, who help us keep our community informed and get the word out, and to Rob Hof, our editor in chief at SiliconANGLE.

Remember we publish each week on Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. These episodes are all available as podcasts wherever you listen.

Email david.vellante@siliconangle.com, DM @dvellante on Twitter and comment on our LinkedIn posts.

Also, check out this ETR Tutorial we created, which explains the spending methodology in more detail. Note: ETR is a separate company from Wikibon and SiliconANGLE. If you would like to cite or republish any of the company’s data, or inquire about its services, please contact ETR at legal@etr.ai.

Here’s the full video analysis:

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Disclosure: Many of the companies cited in Breaking Analysis are sponsors of theCUBE and/or clients of Wikibon. None of these firms or other companies have any editorial control over or advanced viewing of what’s published in Breaking Analysis.

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With the rapidly evolving world of IT and virtualization, staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and obtaining relevant certifications is crucial for career growth and professional success.

VMware is the gold standard when it comes to the most renowned and respected virtualization certifications. In this blog post, we’ll explore the state of VMware certifications in 2023 and identify the best certifications for you.

Is it worth getting a VMware certification?

Short answer: Yes! Obtaining one or more VMware certifications is worth it for IT professionals looking to advance their careers and validate their knowledge and expertise. VMware certifications are well-regarded in the industry and validate the skills and knowledge required to implement and manage VMware products effectively. They can also open doors to new job opportunities and increase earning potential. 

What are the VMware certification tracks?

VMware offers certifications that align with technology tracks across the VMware portfolio. Each track focuses on different VMware products and solutions. There are occasionally small amounts of overlap between tracks, but this is typically only with a handful of exam objectives.

Six tracks are currently available:

• Data Center Virtualization: Design, install, manage, and support vSphere environments

• Cloud Management and Automation: Design, install, configure, optimize, and support VMware Aria and other cloud solutions

• Security: Configure, manage, and support security features of key VMware products

• Network Virtualization: Design, implement, manage, and support an NSX-T environment

• Digital Workspace: Design, configure, deploy, manage, optimize, and troubleshoot Workspace ONE and Horizon with View

• Application Modernization: Develop, manage, and migrate applications through the VMware Tanzu portfolio

What are the VMware certification levels?

Within each VMware certification track, you can achieve different levels of certification. These levels are Technical Associate, Professional, Advanced Professional, and Design Expert. As you can see, these levels align to job roles. Most tracks have all levels available for certification (though there are a few where some of these levels might not exist).

VMware Certified Technical Associate (VCTA)

This is an entry-level technical based certification for those new to the technology, or even new to the industry, and targeted at those who can perform operational tasks with the technology.

VMware Certified Professional (VCP)

These are typically broad technical-based certifications for those who install, configure, manage, and optimize the technology. It’s expected that individuals going for a VCP have worked with the technology in the exam for more than a year.

VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP)

There are two certifications at this level. The first is a VCAP Deploy certification for those who manage and optimize the VMware technology in question. The VCAP Deploy exam is a hands-on experience in a real environment, where you need to show hands-on skills with managing, troubleshooting, and optimizing the products. The second is a VCAP Design certification for those who design and build solutions for VMware technology.

VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX)

This represents the pinnacle of VMware expertise and the highest level of certification. Candidates must hold the VCAP certifications in the relevant VCDX track, submit a design proposal, and defend their design in front of a panel of VMware experts. There are currently 300 VCDXs in the world.

The key VMware certifications available in 2023

With around 30 available certifications, it’s difficult to suggest a few key certifications. If your expertise is in a particular area, such as digital workspace, it makes sense to go deep into that stack from a certification standpoint.

However, if you’re looking for suggestions on key VMware certifications that are helpful from a knowledge perspective and to advance your career in the ever-evolving world of virtualization and modern workloads, the following three certifications top the list.

VMware Certified Professional - Data Center Virtualization (VCP-DCV)

The VCP-DCV certification is designed for IT professionals who want to demonstrate knowledge and expertise in deploying and managing core VMware vSphere environments. The certification validates their skills in working with VMware’s chief virtualization technology. 

The VCP-DCV is VMware’s flagship certification and often singled out as a key requirement in virtualization role job descriptions. Studies have shown holders of the VCP-DCV have improved career opportunities and higher earning potential compared to those without it.

Assess your Vmware VSphere skills >>

Start prepping for your VCP-DCV certification >>

VMware Certified Professional - Network Virtualization (VCP-NV)

The VCP-NV certification is targeted at IT professionals, virtualization specialists, and network administrators who want to demonstrate proficiency in deploying and managing VMware NSX, which is VMware’s software-defined networking solution.

Networking plays an important role in the reliability and performance of applications, especially as you start to support modern and next-generation workloads in the data center and provide hybrid connectivity between multiple environments and clouds.

I remember sitting for the VCP-NV back in 2018 when the main NSX product was NSX-V. I learned so much about networking in general and took that knowledge into other roles and when working with public cloud platforms.

Start prepping for your VCP-NV certification >>

VMware Certified Professional - Application Modernization (VCP-AM)

Cloud-native and modern applications are hot right now. The VCP-AM certification is targeted at IT professionals and developers who want to showcase expertise and knowledge in modern application design, development, and containerization using VMware Tanzu and Kubernetes.

Kubernetes has been on the rise for many years and has become the gold standard of container orchestration for modern applications in cloud-native environments. VMware has been supporting Kubernetes for a while. Achieving this certification will help you understand how cloud native applications are deployed and run on VMware platforms.

This is a great certification to earn after you have the foundations of the VCP-DCV and the VCP-NV. While they aren’t prerequisites, understanding those technologies at a VCP level will assist with the Application Modernization certification path, as Kubernetes on vSphere relies on core vSphere technologies and NSX-T for the networking provider.

Which VMware certification should I take for a rewarding career?

When you consider the different VMware product tracks, there are approximately 30 certifications available at the VMware Certified Professional (VCP), VMware Certified Advanced Professional (VCAP), and VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX) levels. The right VMware certification for you depends on your career aspirations and expertise level.

My advice is to target a few certifications at a VCP level to demonstrate broad experience and knowledge across VMware technologies. Then dive a bit deeper into tracks that make sense for your current role and technology focus by going for the advanced certifications.

If you’re looking to validate your expertise as an architect, the VCDX could be worth considering. But understand that this requires a significant investment of money and time. It’s not for the fainthearted, but I’ve read a lot of stories from people who passed and failed the VCDX noting how much they learned on the journey.

How can I prepare for a VMware certification?

Preparation for VMware certifications is essential, and while your specific approach might differ, my advice is to take a three-pronged approach:

Hands-on experience. Everything at the VCP level and above will expect you to have hands-on experience working with the relevant VMware products in the real world. Yes, you can pass the exams without this level of experience, but the recommended candidate (as described by VMware for VCP certifications) has at least one year of experience with the products and technologies being tested.

Training and study. You’ll want to ensure your knowledge and expertise cover the objectives you’ll be tested on in the exam. My suggestion is to put the exam objectives in a spreadsheet and self-evaluate your knowledge on each one. Then use your favorite training material to solidify what you know and learn new skills as you study.

Test-taking skills. Sitting an exam to achieve a certification from any vendor is almost a skill itself. Questions are typically worded in specific ways. And depending on how many exams you’ve taken, it can be an experience that makes you a little nervous. Take practice exams and assessments to get yourself comfortable with what to expect for the real exam.

VMware publishes documents for all their exams. These exam guides provide information on how the exam will be delivered, which objectives will be tested, and other material you can reference. Always review the exam guide in detail when exploring a new certification. 

Conclusion

VMware certifications continue to hold significant value in the IT industry and have been proven to increase your earning potential and present opportunities for career growth. By understanding the available certifications and tracks, planning for how they relate to your role and aspirations, and ensuring you know how to prepare for a certification, you’ll be setting yourself up for success with VMware certifications in 2023 and onward.

Further learning

If you’re seeking to leap into VMware certification, Pluralsight offers a number of courses that can help you prepare, as well as acquire useful working knowledge — you can sign up for a 10-day free trial with no commitments. If you’re not sure what course to start with, you can do a free Pluralsight SkillIQ assessment.

Here are some learning paths with courses you might want to check out:

David Davis’s vSphere 8 courses are also great for skill building for the core VMware vSphere product:

News

VMware Explore: VMware (and NVIDIA) Execs Promise To Deliver on Generative AI's Promise

• By Gladys Rama
• 08/22/2023

VMware on Tuesday debuted a new solution, jointly developed with NVIDIA, that aims to address the legal, privacy and security concerns around the use of generative AI in enterprises.

VMware Private AI Foundation, expected to launch early next year, is an end-to-end platform designed to help organizations benefit from generative AI technologies while ensuring that their data remains private, secure and compliant. Powering it will be VMware's multicloud and NVIDIA's compute solutions.

VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram announced the Private AI Foundation during the opening keynote of the 2023 VMware Explore conference. He was joined onstage by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, who touted the product as "reinventing enterprise computing."

"For the very first time, enterprises around the world will be able to do private AI at scale ... and know that it's fully secure," Huang said.

With Private AI Foundation, businesses will be able to custom-create and train large language models (LLMs) on their proprietary data. Per NVIDIA's press release, the LLMs run "adjacent" to the customers' data, whether it's in the cloud, their own datacenters or the edge.

Raghuram stressed during the keynote that Private AI Foundation is key to helping organizations take advantage of the promise of generative AI, which he sees as threefold: the "general applicability" of LLMs, "universal access" that doesn't require data science expertise, and up to "100 times improvement in the economics of creativity."

Eventually, Raghuram predicted, generative AI will underpin the majority of modern application development. "Five or 10 years from now, calling something 'AI-powered' will be like calling something 'database-powered' now," he said.

For enterprises, however, the biggest barrier to taking full advantage of generative AI is concern for the security of their data. The concept of "private AI" navigates that barrier by taking what Raghuram described as an "architectural approach" to meet the specific privacy and compliance needs of an organization while using the cloud to facilitate access to LLMs and generative AI technologies.

"This is inherently a multicloud problem" that requires a multicloud solution, per Raghuram.

Other Announcements
Tuesday's VMware Explore opening keynote was a relatively quick one-hour affair, but it was not short on announcements. Besides the Private AI Foundation news, VMware also announced.

• vSAN Max, a new vSAN product that provides petabyte-scale, disaggregated storage.
• The vSphere+ lifecycle management service for ESXi.
• NSX+, a multicloud management, security and load balancing service.
• The ability to create virtual private clouds on demand using APIs.
• The option to perform automated, concurrent ransomware recovery across multiple VMs.
• The Tanzu Application Engine, designed to streamline requests from developers.
• Tanzu Intelligence Services, which use AI to automatically Improve things application performance, resource management and more.
• Improvements to Apps on Demand.
• Improvements to Edge Cloud Orchestrator, née SASE Orchestrator.

Beyond these announcements, for many VMware stakeholders, the elephant in the room is the impending acquisition of VMware by Broadcom for a cool $61 billion. The acquisition was first announced over a year ago. At VMware Explore on Tuesday, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan appeared via a taped message to assure watchers that the acquisition is set to be completed, as scheduled, by the end of October 2023.

Stay tuned for more AI-related news from the conference, which concludes on Thursday. In the meantime, check out our other conference coverage, which includes:

Private wireless pioneer Betacom announced it has been selected by VMware as one of three inaugural wireless service provider partners to deploy and manage VMware Private Mobile Networks. 

Aimed at accelerating digital transformation at the edge, VMware, which today announced its latest edge initiatives at VMware Explore 2023 Las Vegas, tapped Betacom to help enterprises reduce the complexity associated with private mobile networks.

Betacom will seamlessly integrate VMware’s Private Mobile Network offering built on Edge Compute Stack into its existing private network managed service offering 5G as a Service (5GaaS), enabling rapid deployment and effortless management and orchestration of private wireless networks for enterprise clients. Betacom 5GaaS, the industry’s first fully-managed, end-to-end private wireless service, safeguards data by isolating traffic and keeping company data behind the enterprise firewall, by implementing Zero Trust design principles and Betacom AirGap Protection that features a combination of traffic segregation, 3GPP tunneling, encryption and granular access controls. Betacom delivers 24x7, 365 days a year network management from its cloud-based Security and Service Operations Center (SSOC).

The new VMware Edge Compute Stack can support multiple use cases at the edge including deployments in the manufacturing, retail, campus and healthcare sectors for a wide variety of applications. For manufacturing customers, the solution supports software-defined manufacturing, predictive maintenance, inventory management, safety and security. For healthcare customers, it provides support for IoT wearables, smart utilities and surgical robotics.

Today at VMware Explore 2023, Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) and VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) announced the first turnkey solutions from their joint Edge and Cloud Innovation Labs, delivering modern hybrid multi-cloud capabilities to mid-size companies and helping customers more easily harness data to empower their intelligent transformation. Lenovo also unveiled its existing Reference Design for Generative AI in partnership with VMware, a fully integrated Lenovo ThinkSystem solution featuring NVIDIA-accelerated computing and software that is purpose-built to help businesses implement AI and delivers one of the most versatile, accelerated computing platform on the market. The solutions are part of a newly expanded partnership with VMware that is focused on providing businesses of all sizes with an accelerated path to digital transformation through new, integrated edge-to-cloud solutions that simplify the deployment of next-generation AI and data intelligence. Lenovo is also working with VMware and NVIDIA in support of the new VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA generative AI solution announced today at VMware Explore.  

“Lenovo is committed to being the most trusted partner and empowering our customers’ intelligent transformation by enabling IT modernization,” said Kirk Skaugen, President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group. “This expanded collaboration with VMware is a pivotal next step in enabling more businesses to seamlessly leverage modern edge, AI, and hybrid cloud capabilities powered by NVIDIA in order to harness data for accelerated business outcomes.”  

“VMware and Lenovo are partnering to help clients of all sizes become digital companies by investing in the infrastructure required to power a new generation of modern applications, such as Generative AI,” said Krish Prasad, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Cloud Infrastructure Business Group, VMware. “The results from our joint Edge and Cloud Labs and the new fully integrated Lenovo systems are important milestones. Together we’re helping mid-market and enterprise customers manage their changing IT landscape, deliver faster innovation, and Improve business outcomes.”   

“Lenovo, NVIDIA and VMware are helping customers harness the potential of generative AI with full-stack computing, integrated systems and advanced AI software,” said Manuvir Das, Vice President of Enterprise Computing at NVIDIA. “Together, we’re helping enterprises create custom models using their valuable business data that will enable them to run intelligent generative AI applications, including intelligent chatbots, assistants, search and summarization.”  

The proliferation of data is fueling the demand for computing everywhere. Businesses across all industries, including manufacturing and retail, need IT solutions that help deliver AI and real-time insights from any location, from the data center to the edge and cloud.   

Lenovo is extending its partnership with VMware to help customers harness the value of their data, deploying purpose-built NVIDIA AI solutions to transform their business with more predictable outcomes by leveraging NVIDIA AI Enterprise, the enterprise-grade software that powers the NVIDIA AI platform. NVIDIA AI Enterprise includes NVIDIA NeMo software to accelerate the development and deployment of production-ready large language models (LLMs). Lenovo’s existing Reference Design for Generative AI based on LLMs shows businesses how to deploy and commercialize powerful generative AI tools and foundation models, using a pre-validated, fully integrated, and performance optimized solution for data centers running on VMware vSphere.   

The solution features NVIDIA GPU-dense platforms that are purpose built for AI workloads, including the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR675 V3 and ThinkSystem SR670 V2, offering up to eight-GPUs in a compact 3U or smaller footprint for the highest performing accelerated workloads. The Lenovo computing platforms serve as the most versatile, accelerated computing platforms on the market with three server configurations in one, including support for NVIDIA HGX A100 4-GPU systems with NVIDIA NVLink technology and Lenovo Neptune hybrid liquid cooling, as well as four or eight GPU configurations featuring NVIDIA L40S and 80GB NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs, or NVIDIA H100 NVL servers. Combining the power of Lenovo and NVIDIA technologies with VMware, these servers will help professionals worldwide advance AI and bring generative AI applications like intelligent chatbots, search, and summarization tools to users across industries.  

To further support critical network integration, Lenovo is adding the latest NVIDIA Spectrum-X™ networking technology from NVIDIA to its AI portfolio, using NVIDIA BlueField®-3 data processing units (DPUs) and NVIDIA Spectrum-4 switches in its generative AI reference design for more advanced AI workload integration. These add to existing options for accelerated networking with NVIDIA ConnectX-7 Ethernet NICs.  

Additionally, new ThinkAgile VX Integrated Systems with VMware are designed to help mid-market customers enter the next wave of AI and machine learning with more efficient IT that is easier to deploy across hybrid multi-cloud and edge environments. The new, jointly developed hyperconverged infrastructure solutions are factory-integrated, pre-configured, and ready-to-go, simplifying the path to hybrid multi-cloud for midsize customers. Offering advanced scalability, high performance, and reliability, Lenovo ThinkAgile VX with VMware Cloud Foundation delivers a complete and integrated multi-cloud infrastructure solution for building and managing private and hybrid clouds, leveraging VMware’s tools for automating the deployment and management of infrastructure and applications.   

Lenovo is also delivering a future-ready, on-demand model with Lenovo TruScale Hybrid Cloud for VMware. This new private cloud infrastructure as a service offering will enable IT admins and developers to more easily build, run, manage, and secure traditional and next-gen applications across multiple private data centers and cloud providers. Lenovo TruScale Hybrid Cloud for VMware combines the extensibility and enhanced security of VMware Cloud infrastructure with the simplicity of cloud operations, enabling customers to easily scale hybrid cloud workloads on demand. With the Lenovo TruScale for VMware, customers are supported by a single, integrated billing, pay-as-you-grow model to achieve total cost of ownership savings.   

Together, the extended collaboration between Lenovo and VMware will expand joint, go-to-market strategies and deliver new on-demand services, making modern IT infrastructure solutions more easily accessible to a broader range of customers.   

Visit https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/servers-storage/alliance/vmware/ to learn more. 

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