FAQs

UBC’s existing VMware-based private cloud (known as EduCloud) is no longer viable due to Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in late 2023 and subsequent cost increases combined with product discontinuations. Under the new ownership, licensing costs are expected to triple, and critical tools like vCloud Director which many units across the UBC community have built dependencies on, are being eliminated, making continued use of VMware both financially and operationally unsustainable, forcing institutions to re-evaluate their options.

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, which brings steep licensing increases and product discontinuations, has accelerated UBC’s decision to migrate services to the cloud. This shift aligns with UBC’s long-term vision to modernize its IT infrastructure, improve scalability, reduce technical debt, and lay the foundation for future innovation. To drive institutional transformation over the next decade and beyond, UBC must move away from outdated technologies and rigid processes toward flexible, future-proof solutions that enable agility and growth.

Broadcom’s previous acquisition behaviours – like their acquisition of Symantec and CA Technologies—shed light into the potential motivations and post-acquisition strategy: to acquire enterprise software companies with deeply embedded products, then raise licensing costs and shift to subscription models to improve profit margins. This approach reflects a consistent historical pattern that relies on customers being too “locked in” to existing services, due to high migration complexity and costs, creating a scenario where clients justify the increased service costs and remain with the status quo. In UBC’s case, Broadcom’s planned tripling of VMware licensing costs, along with the discontinuation of key products, renders VMware financially and operationally unsustainable for UBC.

EduCloud is UBC's private cloud offering infrastructure-as-a-service for on-premises provisioning of virtual servers.Hybrid Cloud Service is the next generation offering that incorporates both public and private clouds and includes additional features such as cost management and security compliance recommendations.

The VMware platform is being retired. UBC will not renew its license and the data currently on VMWare will not be accessible once our license expires. Renewing the VMWare license under the new pricing tiers would be prohibitively expensive (~$40M over 5 years), and will lock UBC into a less flexible future, which still requires significant hardware investments and refresh. Maintaining the status quo is not aligned with UBC’s long term health and sustainability. 

Keeping your current setup will compromise the applications your environment is supporting, and would expose you to excessively high costs, and reduced functionality.

Yes, there may be performance differences when moving from on-premises to cloud environments, both positive and negative. Public cloud platforms offer elastic scalability and access to powerful computing resources, which can significantly improve performance for many workloads—especially those requiring burst capacity or high availability.

However, some workloads may experience latency or throughput impacts depending on their sensitivity to network conditions, storage I/O, or how tightly integrated they are with on-prem systems. UBC will conduct workload assessments and optimizations during migration to ensure critical applications maintain or exceed current performance levels. In some cases, re-architecting may be required post-migration to fully leverage cloud-native performance benefits.

UBC’s VMware license agreement expires in July 2026, and the full transition must be completed by June 2026, ahead of the expiration. 

The migration roll out will take place in phases, allowing for adjustments and fine-tuning before full-scale implementation. Phase 1 will impact UBC IT only. Phase 2 will impact the broader UBC Community, who is leveraging existing VMWare technologies. During Phase 1, development environments will be migrated first with the support and leadership of the UBC IT Systems Team. Pilot programs will also be offered with select departments to identify potential issues and gather feedback. Throughout later phases of the migration, continuous support and resources such as help desks and online tutorials will also be offered to ease any burden of transition on those affected.

Yes, a pilot environment is part of the planned implementation approach.  The pilot will begin with UBCIT Development workloads, which will serve as the first group to test and validate migration tools, configuration practices, and cloud readiness.  The goal is to identify technical and operational issues early and refine the process before expanding to broader campus stakeholders. Pilot access is anticipated in late August 2025.