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Hello everyone and welcome back to the SourceForge podcast.
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I'm your host, Bo Hamilton.
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Now, quick bit of context before we get into today's conversation because it's it's a conversation that I think a lot of IT leaders are having right now, whether they they want to or not.
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So back in late 2023, Broadcom closed its$69 billion acquisition of VMware, the virtualization platform that if you run servers, you've almost certainly touched.
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And in the the two plus years since VMware's licensing has been completely overhauled, right?
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Perpetual licenses are gone.
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Everything's subscription only and priced per core, and thousands of individual products got consolidated into a handful of big bundles.
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And the result is uh renewal quotes coming in at two, three, sometimes ten times what companies were paying before.
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And there are actually industry reports of increases north of a thousand percent in extreme cases.
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And surveys actually suggesting roughly half of VMware customers are actively evaluating alternatives.
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And the group feeling this uh the hardest isn't the Fortune 500, it's small and mid-market businesses, companies running a handful of hosts who suddenly got enterprise-shaped invoices.
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So today we're going to be digging into all that, what that moment actually looks like from the inside, and what the realistic options are.
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With someone who lives in this world every day, Michael Oaheon is with Nexus Managed Cloud.
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Nexus is a managed cloud platform that brings together some names you might know, LiquidWeb and servers.com, all into one ecosystem.
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And they've built an entire practice around helping companies navigate exactly this situation, including a private cloud offering where they host your VMware environment and uh absorb the licensing themselves.
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So I'm really uh excited to have Michael here today.
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Michael, welcome to the podcast.
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Glad you could join us.
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Yeah, I appreciate it, Bo.
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Thanks for having me.
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So um, let's get right into the basics here um because I want to make sure everyone's sort of oriented uh with what's been going on.
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Tell us a little bit about um Nexus Managed Cloud first and foremost.
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Maybe you can help uh describe what the platform does.
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Sure.
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So Nexus Managed Cloud, to your point, has been a collection of two companies, LiquidWeb and Servers.com.
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LiquidWeb, uh traditional web hosting provider, which eventually went up market and started providing managed cloud solutions uh through their 29 years of being around.
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Thereafter, servers.com, high performance, dedicated infrastructure.
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Uh, we brought them together to create a unified story, really a managed service provider for mid-market enterprises, you know, and being able to give them the opportunity to have everything under one roof.
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You know, we can do web hosting, we can do server management, we can do Windows, Linux, large infrastructure, as well as manage cloud infrastructure.
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And so, you know, kind of that one throat to choke, let's say, uh, you know, you have one organization to call, you don't have to worry about having five different vendors that, oh, this is my dedicated server company, this is my web hosting provider, this is who does this.
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You know, the collection of the companies really give a breath of fresh air to the market that customers can come to us and ultimately expect us to host all of their different infrastructure platforms under one roof.
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Okay, I love that.
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Like one-stop shop sort of offering it here.
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Um, what kind of businesses uh or workloads are sort of the best fit for the Nexus Managed Cloud platform?
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So definitely we service a lot of people in the SB mid-market.
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Um, we are highly compliant.
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So everywhere from SOC2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, uh, CMMICC.
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So we're working with credit unions, financial institutions, healthcare organizations that really want to make sure that their infrastructure is compliant, secure, reliable, redundant.
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We have a very large data center in Lansing, Michigan, among several other data centers uh located globally.
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So really giving our customers that peace of mind that their infrastructure is safe, secure, and managed.
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Okay.
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So is it fair to say that it's sort of the companies you're you're working with, um, they're big enough that, you know, obviously downtime technical issues really hurt the companies, but they're not so big that they've got maybe a 40-person IT department, right?
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Exactly.
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That's where we we help augment a lot of our customers.
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You know, they don't have a large team or they don't have the budget to have a large team.
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You know, you look at all these different things you have to manage as a business, you know, it's not only the network, the firewalls, and then down to the storage and the virtualization and the management of the virtual machines or physical servers.
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You need multiple people that know those things very well if you want to do it right.
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So if you're a SMB mid-market, you need a network engineer, you need a VMware engineer, you need a server engineer.
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And next thing you know, you have to have this large team if you really want to do it right.
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And that's where Nexus comes in to augment that.
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And it also allows your teams to work on the bigger projects that drive revenue.
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Infrastructure doesn't drive revenue in a business.
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It just doesn't, depending on obviously if you're a SaaS organization or similar, of course, it does in some way, shape, or form.
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But if you're a credit union or healthcare system, you know, those things really aren't truly driving revenue.
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They're just to maintain the business so you can actually operate.
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And so what we do is let us take over all of those workloads and the day-to-day of the business, the updates, the management, the responding to alerts when things happen, the deployment of servers.
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So then you can take your team and focus on things that can actually drive growth or drive revenue within your business.
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Yeah, those SMB uh and mid-market companies, I mean, they're they're a huge slice of the market and really they're sort of the exact slice that's kind of been squeezed by what's been happening uh in licensing lately, which of course we will get into.
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But before we get into the VMware side of things specifically, um, I want to zoom out a little bit.
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You you talked, uh, you obviously talked to a lot of SMB mid-market IT leaders.
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What's like the biggest shift you're seeing in how these companies just think about their infrastructure right now?
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Yeah, it interestingly enough, I think, you know, if we take VMware out of the mix and let's just focus on the hyperscalers.
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You know, the hyperscalers took a huge portion of the market many, many years ago.
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You know, call 10 years ago, everybody wanted to be in AWS and Azure.
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And I think what people are realizing is putting those eggs in that basket is great, uh, but ultimately, you know, you you lose cost control.
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You know, AWS doesn't provide you or Azure any management or they'll be alike.
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You use your infrastructure, you get a bill, and you know what, if you got a$10,000 overage that month, AWS or Azure is going to turn to you and say, where's our money?
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Right?
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They're not they're not gonna work with you to solve that problem.
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And so what I've also identified through these conversations is you know, so many platforms have now been built on top of AWS and Azure, and you have so many eggs in one basket that if something goes down on Azure, you know, uh let's use AWS had an S3 outage a couple years ago.
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You know, companies were down for two days almost.
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I think it was a 19-something hour outage by the time they got everything back up.
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And it comes to find out, all these IT leaders are like, oh, I didn't realize my SaaS tool was also on top of AWS, and and this platform was also on AWS.
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So now you have your infrastructure, you have your SaaS tools, and everything's on AWS.
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And what I think people are realizing is they have to be very careful of the systems they're deploying across the board.
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You know, I think we all want to be hybrid in some way, shape, or form.
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Um, but I think what's really happened through conversations is a lot of IT leaders didn't understand how many things they were actually putting in AWS, minus their just servers, whatever they were running, their workloads.
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And now we're shifting away from that.
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You know, some of them want to keep some stuff local on-prem, some want to keep backups in a different data center, some uh want to run it in a facility like us.
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And, you know, I think it's really identifying what a hybrid cloud strategy looks like is expanding than uh more than it's ever been.
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And that's what we're seeing.
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Uh people are looking for more predictable costs, making sure they're diversified when it comes to all of their tools and platforms and systems so that all their eggs aren't in one basket and and they can recover uh when they need to, uh, if there's an outage or or similar.
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It's unfortunate that it takes one of those outages to, you know, sort of illuminate the the tech stack and what's um where everything is kind of being run on and whatnot.
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But uh, you know, I I think that makes a really you make a really good point where you need to sort of have some backup plans, some alternatives, so it's not you don't have all your eggs in one basket because uh that just creates a massive headache when the inevitable sort of happens um of an outage.
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Um okay, so then let's talk about Broadcom a little bit and not just VMware, because that's you know not really exactly where the story starts, I would say.
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You know, I mentioned the in the intro about the the Broadcom acquisition and and kind of the the playbook they they brought to other acquisitions also before VMware.
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So CA uh technologies in 2018, uh Symantecs Enterprise Business in 2019.
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What's like the pattern you've seen in how they and how Broadcom operates once they take a company over?
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Yeah, it's a great, great question.
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And if we look at history, and we all know history repeats itself to some extent, shape, or form, Broadcom is known for really disrupting the end user with no care in the world of how they do that or what they do.
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It's all business decisions and they're they don't really think about the impact on the end user.
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It's all just what are the numbers?
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Do we make more money?
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Does it uh improve the company's multiple of value?
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And it's clear that they have done that with computer associates, semantic andor the like.
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I mean, I think when they acquired semantic within the first 12 months, they reduced a billion dollars worth of opex.
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That that's great on paper, but what did what probably happened with that?
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Uh they didn't just you know turn around and uh obviously not impact the end user because they probably cut support costs.
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So now people that are using semantic aren't getting the same level of support they used to get.
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And that's why they went and used maybe a premium provider.
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If we look at you know the market, when you can go and procure a security tool, backups tool, there's 20 of them out there, right?
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I don't think anybody can negate that.
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You know, you you have options.
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But now when you decided to go, which semantic and at its prime was one of the peak enterprise products, you know, ultimately you disrupted that entire market where you know people said, well, now I don't have good support.
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I'm paying a premium for your service.
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There's other players in the market.
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So what happened?
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Those people decided to say, I'm gonna go buy something else.
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If you're you're gonna make me continue to pay a premium and you're gonna now reduce your operating costs, which means my support is impacted.
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I'm not getting that the SLA or the agreements I used to get, I'm gonna go elsewhere.
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Same thing with CA Technologies, Computer Associates, you know, was a brand that everybody knew.
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And I'm not saying that we we don't anymore, but you don't hear their name come up as much anymore.
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You know, and they they they hyper focus on just a niche and that's okay.
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But what's the problem is they affect everybody else downstream, you know, and that's just broadcom strategy is, you know, and it's been clear with this whole VMware thing, they've shown that they they don't have a care in the world for the SMB, the mid-market.
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You know, they've put their stamp and said, we're going enterprise, and that's all we care about.
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And they could have done it in a different way, in my opinion, and said, hey, you know, this is the direction of our company.
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In three years, you'd have to migrate elsewhere, give people time.
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Nope, they just turned around and said, let's go ahead and increase everybody by tier point earlier, two, four, 10x renewals with no time to make it happen.
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And now people are left to just take these extra operating costs, find a way to put them into their budget.
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And it's just traditional.
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Like Broadcom has continued to do this time and time again.
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Yeah, we we've read the, we've read the headlines.
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Um, I we cover a lot of the stories overall on Slashdot, and and there's a lot of definitely some unpleasant effects.
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And but but like when you read the headlines, you don't really necessarily hear about all the the ripple effects and negative consequences and just what exactly is going on.
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Um we don't we know that it's not good, and it's great to hear to your sentiment and your your feedback on you know having an inside look at this.
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Maybe you could walk us through some of the you know the changes and like what's happening because you know, obviously Broadcom has has turned a routine renewal into a sort of six-figure conversation for a lot of teams, which is very stressful and impactful.
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What does that moment look like from the inside, like when a customer opens that quote for the first time?
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I'm sure it's sticker shock.
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You know, and we've heard it from our customers.
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Uh, we've, you know, being a service provider, we're in a little bit of a different position than somebody that might have procured uh licensing direct through VMware.
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The, you know, there's two different channels.
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You can either go direct to VMware or through one of the distributors to procure it for your own private cloud infrastructure in your data closet.
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Or traditionally, you were able to get it through a service provider such as us, where you'd come to us, we would be able to essentially rent you the licensing on a monthly basis or a yearly contract, depending on what you were looking to commit to, um, for a fair and reasonable price for a premium virtualization platform.
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You know, VMware, there's nothing we we cannot take away anything from VMware.
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They have been one of the most reliable virtualization platforms for decades at this point.
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And, you know, now you see this invoice and you just say, what am I supposed to do?
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You know, now I go from paying, let's use a hypothetical number,$1,000 a month for my licensing to now$10,000.
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That's a material amount of money for an SMB or mid-market organization that is already thin on budgets, that is trying to figure out how they keep the lights on and stop the firefighting because that's just what happens in IT.
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That's what we're doing all day long.
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And so you see that and you're just, you I feel like you're just in quicksand and you you have no idea how to get out of it because now you have to find the dollars to take care of this because you can't migrate quick.
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It's not easy to do a large-scale migration in 30 days or 60 days or 90 days among the 30 other projects that you have going on at the same time.
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And so now you have to balance where you may, you might have wanted to get off VMware for a while, but it's stable, it was reliable.
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And why?
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Things were operating.
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You had other business priorities.
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Well, now you're forced to make this a business priority and you got to find a way to fit it into your strategy because I can tell you, not many CFOs are gonna wake up in the morning and say, no problem.
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Oh, our VMware pricing is going up from a thousand to ten thousand dollars a month.
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We'll figure it out.
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No, you know, the conversation is, well, how are we gonna solve that?
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Because we can't, we can't take that cost.
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And so, you know, ultimately, they're all at this point, you know, struggling to decide what they need to do.
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Are they gonna do it on their own and just get a new virtualization platform?
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Well, then you need new engineers that knew the know the new virtualization platform.
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You have to stand it up, you got to migrate it, you got to configure it.
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You're you're learning, you're you're kind of like flying the plane as you're putting it together, right?
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And and that's really hard for SMB and mid-market organizations to do among the other priorities.
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So it's sticker shock, it's frustration.
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And I think some of it, you know, is really disappointing.
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You know, the you've now had VMware for 10 years or 15 years, you've been loyal, especially as imagine being an IT provider who every company you went into, you took VMware with you.
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You went and you said, Oh, we're gonna go with VMware, they're reliable, they're stable, they're gonna keep our systems up and running.
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And now that 15 or 20 years of loyalty, you're just told, hey, here's here's your new bill.
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Uh, and if you like it, great.
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If you don't, oh well.
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That's a really tough conversation.
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It is disappointing, yeah.
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And the detail that gets me is just the it's the same servers doing the same work, nothing's really changed on the customer side, right?
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No growth, no new workloads.
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But you have here you have the bill doubling, tripling, and then the time pressure being baked into it, and you miss your renewal dates, like you know, mentioning earlier.
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There's there's the penalties that are waiting.
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So it's just uh a frantic, you know, big number and a ticking clock.
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And yeah, man, the and then and then licensing, the licensing itself is really only the visible part of the cost, right?
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Because there's the whole sort of second invoice that never shows up.
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Um what are some of the talk about some of the costs?
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Like what are some of the costs that show up that leadership maybe didn't budget for?
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Yeah, I I mean the the costs that show up because of this is not just the licensing fees, right?
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It's the now you need to go likely procure new hardware because you got to keep your existing infrastructure up and running.
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So you can't just say, hey, we're gonna move to Nutanix, you know, name the virtualization platform out there.
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You now have to go procure brand new equipment because you got to keep the lights on on the existing infrastructure.
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You then have to pay licensing for that new provider.
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You know, and though we have a great partnership with Nutanix and we work through these things, there might be other virtualization platforms that say, we're not giving you a path to get there.
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You have to start paying us the minute you provision the infrastructure.
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So now you stand up all this new hardware, which you have to procure.
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And hardware right now is through the roof due to the growth of AI and everything going on in that market.
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You then have to have it installed.
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You have to potentially have new network equipment, you have to have somebody that actually knows how to get this up and running.
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So you're gonna pay an operating cost or professional service fee to get it up.
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Then you're gonna have to migrate that infrastructure from VMware to Nutanix or whatever virtualization platform you choose.
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So you're paying a cost for that, whether it's an internal cost, um, it's still a cost because now that employee or whomever you're having do it isn't working on new projects.
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They're working on this thing that they didn't anticipate to work on this year.
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And then it's maybe the virtualization platform that you're moving to is even a little bit more expensive than VMware.
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So you're now paying VMware while you migrate off, you're buying new hardware, you're paying the new virtualization platform, whatever their monthly fees are.
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And it's it's really, really costly.
00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:20.480
You know, it's, I mean, just to migrate alone, you're probably looking at several hundred thousand dollars that you didn't anticipate just to get off of VMware.
00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:25.039
Oh, wait, by the way, VMware is saying you still have to pay us for the next six months.
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:31.359
And so now I maybe I migrate off, but I still have to finish paying VMware because I had a contract with them.
00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:33.759
So it's just it's brutal.
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:34.400
Wow.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:35.680
Yeah, what a nightmare.
00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:36.799
Uh okay, crazy.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.880
So we've we've established the problem, absolutely.
00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:46.240
And I think anyone who's listening who's been through a recent renewal is is definitely very much here with us, nodding along.
00:17:46.400 --> 00:18:02.240
Uh, when a business decides, you know, to move to a managed cloud environment, whether that's keeping VMware under new management or sort of leaving it behind entirely, how does how does that transition, what does that transition actually look like from the first maybe conversation you're having to just everything being said and done?
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:07.519
So, you know, we what we like to do is we take like to take over as much responsibility as you like us to.
00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:08.480
We're flexible.
00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.720
Some of our customers, you know, turn around and say, hey, we just want you to manage the infrastructure.
00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:18.640
We'll manage the guest operating systems, we'll do all the firewalls, we'll bring our own firewall, we have our own network deployment.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.880
So it's very, very flexible across the board.
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:25.839
But ultimately, you know, from the minute we have our conversation, we're going to scope all those things out.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.440
You know, option A, option B, option C, kind of pick which which route or path you want to take.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.000
Again, Nexus is flexible to the outcome.
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:46.400
And so from there, what we do is with our sales engineers and team, we scope out a migration strategy and we really identify kind of what VMs or servers can we take over as they sit, or which ones maybe we might want to build net new.
00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:47.839
And we'll use an example.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:57.599
Let's just say you're running a Windows virtual server that's uh Windows 2013 and you really want to get to Windows 2016, 2020, whatever name the version.
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:03.119
Maybe we'll stand up brand new servers on our infrastructure, but then migrate everything else as they sit.
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:11.839
So we'll use our replication tools, our backup tools to get all of your servers in their current state uh over to our infrastructure, which we deploy, we manage, we configure.
00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:14.799
Customer doesn't need to worry about anything of that nature.
00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.440
We take care of all of that with our onboarding engineers.
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:20.240
They're gonna get a project manager through this entire process.
00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.279
They're gonna get a team of engineers that are dedicated to the migration.
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:32.000
So take everything, lift and shift, maybe build net new where it makes sense, and then ultimately develop an entire strategy on how we're gonna do things.
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:39.759
Then we're gonna make uh essentially a playbook of what we're gonna cut over first, because what we're not gonna do is we're not gonna take, let's just say you have 50 servers.
00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:43.039
We're not gonna say, hey, on Sunday night, let's cut everything over.
00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:44.079
That doesn't make sense.
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:49.440
We bridge the two environments together, the best of our ability to do so, depending on the customer's network and hours.
00:19:49.519 --> 00:20:00.160
Uh, and then what we'll do is we'll naturally, after we replicate and print things over, we'll schedule multiple windows over the course of a few months, depending how large the infrastructure is, to cut things over in chunks.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:11.920
So maybe we take your web applications and database servers, we pick uh day to do that, we cut those over, we overhaul your network and how you how the internet speaks to it, whether we're bridging our networks together.
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:14.960
There's a lot of different ways, and we don't need to get in the complexity of that.
00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:17.759
But we have the team that has done this time and time again.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:21.440
We figure out what those nuances are and ultimately build a plan around it.
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:28.240
So you sign up with us depending on your environment, depending on how sizable it is, depending how mission critical some of the workloads are.
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.640
Sometimes we want to be a little bit like crawl, walk, run.
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:35.440
Let's get some of the development servers over first, then we'll do these, then we'll do that.
00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:51.279
Um, but we architect an entire strategy around that to make sure that we limit and uh obviously mitigate downtime or impact to your business, um, and can do that sometimes in a month and sometimes in two to three months, depending again the size of your environment.
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:53.680
Uh I want to underline that that first option.
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:59.920
I think it was the first option where where um you don't necessarily have to sort of leave VMware, right, to escape the licensing problem.
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:06.480
You're it's like you can your environment, your tooling, your sort of the muscle memory that your team has sort of instilled into the platform.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:12.880
Um they're all intact, but the licensing exposure kind of moves off the books, right, onto the Nexus platform when they partner with you guys.
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:15.599
I I think that's a really enticing sort of approach.
00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:19.039
You don't have to like rip everything out and just sort of restart the operation.
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:27.839
And uh the migration piece too matters too, because you know, who actually does the move is is the question that I think probably kills a lot of the projects uh before they even get started.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:38.079
So that brings me to you know the folks listening who who knows they know something's wrong, but they haven't really done anything about it yet because again, the problem just feels too big to really even start.
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:44.480
What's the what's the first like lowest risk step for a team that suspects they need to change, but they just don't know where to start?
00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:51.279
Yeah, I think you know lowest risk really comes down to uh you know all of your workloads and your footprint.
00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:57.599
And so, you know, sometimes what we've done with customers is uh, you know, they know they need to reduce some of their cost.
00:21:58.000 --> 00:21:59.440
So take the the m less.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.480
Critical infrastructure and move it over to us first.
00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:07.920
And then you hay a lower licensing model potentially if you can downsize your VMware environment.
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:22.799
Because what VMware did, which is really, really the thing that is 2Xing, 3Xing, 4X in cost, is they went from a model where you were able to license based on your provisioned infrastructure from a virtualization standpoint.
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:35.599
So meaning, let's just say you had uh 10 virtual servers and they all had 100 gigabytes of memory, they would basically charge you a monthly rate for the memory that you have provisioned on your VMs.
00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:38.960
It had nothing to do with the physical underlying infrastructure.
00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:44.640
Well, the reason why they're for X in costs is because they ultimately said, we're getting rid of that model.
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.799
Whatever your physical footprint is, even if you're not using it.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:53.759
So if you have a physical server running 32 cores, we're gonna charge you for 32 cores.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:58.319
But the customer's saying, well, I don't need 32 cores, I'm only using 12 or 16.
00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:00.240
They're like, yeah, but that's what the physical hardware is.
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:01.839
So that's what we're charging you on.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:09.440
And so that is one of the biggest things where it's, you know, you're you're taking these people that have deployed infrastructure with the anticipation that they're gonna grow into it.
00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:10.400
They're not there yet.
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:16.640
But now you're you're gonna tell them, hey, I know you want to grow into this hardware, but we're still gonna charge you more for it anyway.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:22.400
And so where we've been able to help people is they're saying, hey, I can't get into a big migration right now.
00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:26.559
I have to keep my mission critical workloads because we have Black Friday coming up.
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.200
We have this, we have that, we cannot disrupt that.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:34.559
But through the renewal, we say, okay, well, how about we get this infrastructure that's not as mission critical?
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:38.480
That allows you to reduce your physical footprint in your current environment.
00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:44.160
And then once you're past that issue or hurdle preventing you from migrating, then we'll migrate the rest.
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:50.160
And then you can be totally either off VMware or in our cloud running VMware, really up to the customer.
00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:54.960
Um, but that's ultimately how we've helped and low-hanging fruit we can absorb.
00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:01.519
Now, now, once a business is on uh a managed cloud with Nexus, what does that ongoing relationship look like?
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:04.960
Like what's your team sort of doing week to week that a customer doesn't see?
00:24:05.599 --> 00:24:08.559
So ultimately we're managing all of the infrastructure.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:10.960
We're responding to alerts, issues, problems.
00:24:11.119 --> 00:24:12.240
Infrastructure breaks down.
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:13.359
No different than a car.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:18.720
You know, you could get in it tomorrow, and next thing you know, you have a leak somewhere and you have to take care of it, right?
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.160
Same thing with infrastructure.
00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:25.200
And so uh our team is monitoring, responding, remediating whenever something happens.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:29.599
Two in the morning, four in the morning, Saturday at 5 a.m., it's on us.
00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:42.880
So, you know, rather than that IT team that's working for an organization getting that phone call that a hypervisor is down, sand storage having an issue, one of the virtual machines is um offline and not on.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:54.079
Those are alerts that our team is ingesting 247365 responding, and then also informing the customer of, hey, just want to let you know here's an issue, we're responding to it and fixing it, remeeting AA.
00:24:54.400 --> 00:25:02.640
And that gives you IT teams such a peace of mind that they're not the ones getting the phone call at two o'clock or whatever you know the time might be.
00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:08.079
And so then ongoing relationship is where we're gonna we're gonna look at the performance of everything.
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:09.759
We're gonna provide recommendations.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.279
Hey, these servers and virtual machines are doing this on a regular basis.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:17.279
It looks like we see XYZ is happening to your CPU and memory.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:21.839
Here is what we advise to solve that problem, or hey, maybe we need to do this instead.
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.920
And so that's all of our responsibility.
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:32.960
You know, not only is it just keeping the lights on, it's performance enhancement as well, and making sure that you're gonna get better performance, you're gonna get better redundancy, you're gonna get better reliability.
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:34.400
And that's all ownership on us.
00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:36.400
And that's what our team is expected to do.
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:47.039
So for our SMB mid-market customers, not only do they get an account manager and a solutions engineer who is tied to their account, uh, they also get a CSM and technical account manager.
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:55.920
That these are the individuals that are doing these things on a regular basis, doing your QBRs with you every quarter, making sure we're we're solving problems, making sure we're giving you more advice.
00:25:56.079 --> 00:26:04.880
And then, you know, ultimately, hopefully we're just a really good partner so that again, you can focus on higher leveraged tasks while we manage all of the back end.
00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:05.759
I love that.
00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:11.039
Yeah, that's that I think it's fair to say that like, you know, the best infrastructure is really the kind that you don't have to think about too much.
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:16.240
And I think there's something almost like funny about just paying for work specifically so you never see it.
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:18.240
But but that's the that's the trade-off, right?
00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:26.880
When you would to avoid all those technical issues that seem to happen at the worst time, you know, like Black Friday, um, whenever it's it, you don't want to have to experience that.
00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:35.759
And so yeah, partnering with you guys to take care of a lot of the the behind-the-scenes stuff is is um, I can imagine, really uh valuable and sort of an enticing offer.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:48.640
And there's another piece of the the bundle that I also want to call it specifically because it's usually, from what I understand, sold as sort of a separate, a totally separate product by a totally separate company, and that's uh backup and disaster recovery.
00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:55.279
So maybe you can talk about like why does Nexus bundle that into the managed cloud instead of leaving it to somebody else?
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:03.119
Yeah, I think you know what the market has always shown software companies are really good at being software companies.
00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:06.000
What they're not good at is the managed services piece.
00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:18.240
And there's a reason why, if we take AWS, for instance, they don't offer managed services because it's it's just a much different kind of strength that you need to really be a managed service provider.
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:24.640
And the the problem is if we take backups into SS or cover and we'll use a Cronus, who is our partner in that space.
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:30.559
You know, they only offer one portion of what you need for managed infrastructure.
00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:32.799
They offer backups in disaster recovery.
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:38.880
Now actually they're offering security, EDR, and MDR, but ultimately they don't offer all of it.
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:40.880
They don't maybe have a virtualization side of it.
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:41.440
They don't have this.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.920
So now you have this mishmosh of, well, I got this vendor for this and I got this vendor for that.
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.079
And when I have an issue, I got to call a Cronus.
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.240
Well, again, one roof.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:54.079
Now you have Nexus who can provide all of those services for you.
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:57.440
You have one number to call anytime you need support.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:00.079
You don't need to worry about the pointing fingers.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:03.599
It's like that Spider-Man meme where it's like, no, it's him, him, him, him.
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:05.759
And, you know, that's what people are looking for.
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:14.880
You know, the the blame game of that's gone on for decades and decades where it's like, well, you know, it's not VMware's issue, it's this issue, it's that, it's it's this provider.
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:21.680
And if, you know, you just get into the point where imagine being an IT vendor and you're like, I don't care whose problem it is, I just want it taken care of.
00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:22.720
I just need it fixed.
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:26.000
I need my backups up, I need my recovery, I need this.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:36.400
And so that's why Nexus, you know, really comes in as a strong managed player because we partner with all of these different software organizations as well as technologies to bring that together for you.
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:39.599
As the IT leader, you have one phone call to make.
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:43.440
We will help navigate all of the issues and you can go again.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:46.240
It all comes back to bringing value to the business.
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:57.039
Your IT team can now make that new payment platform or whatever you're thinking, and not have to worry about all these other nuances so that you can go drive growth for the business.
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:01.359
I want to bring sort of the conversation home with this one last question I have for you.
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:11.440
If someone listening is sort of staring down a VMware renewal or just maybe rethinking their infrastructure in general, what's the the one question they should ask before they decide?
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:16.000
Do you plan on staying with VMware or do you want to move?
00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:20.319
And I think that should help dictate your next steps.
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:34.960
Um, because ultimately, hopefully, people will realize you don't want to be with a virtualization platform that is just on a whim, going to make really critical decisions to impact you because if they did it once, they're probably going to do it again.
00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:41.440
So I I would challenge people to think, do I want to even stay with VMware knowing what I know?
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:43.839
And then that should dictate kind of your next steps.
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.000
That's the perfect note to end on.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:48.400
Yeah, because the renewal quote isn't isn't really decision.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:59.599
The decision is is is what the next three you know years looks like and whether you want to kind of keep renting a you know uh a seat on someone else's pricing roller coaster or just get to a number you can actually plan around.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:00.880
Yeah, that's that's great.
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:02.799
Michael, thank you so much for for coming on.
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:10.319
This is genuinely really useful, and I appreciate all the information you shared and and just describing and explaining what's been going on here.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:22.000
Because I I read a lot of the headlines and hear kind of the the overview of the disgruntlement and uh disappointment of the Broadcom VMware situation, but hearing it firsthand is is really insightful.
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:23.680
So appreciate that.
00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:30.000
Um for anyone who you know is interested in learning more about Nexus, the Nexus Managed Cloud, uh, where's the best place to go?
00:30:31.039 --> 00:30:31.680
On our website.
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:34.559
You know, we have plenty of call to actions and places to contact us.
00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:36.000
There's a phone number on there as well.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:40.079
So Nexus.com and uh one of our team members will be happy to help.
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:41.119
Perfect.
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:44.720
Nexus.com, and then we can uh get in contact with you over on LinkedIn, I assume.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:45.759
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:46.799
Perfect.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.279
All right, we'll drop links in the description and the show notes.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:50.319
Um, thanks again, Michael.
00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:51.599
I appreciate everything.
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:54.559
Thank you for listening to the SourceForge podcast.
00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:56.240
I am your host, Bo Hamilton.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.880
Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software related podcasts.
00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:02.720
I will talk to you in the next one.
00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:07.919
Hello everyone and welcome back to the SourceForge podcast.
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.519
I'm your host, Bo Hamilton.
00:00:09.679 --> 00:00:18.079
Now, quick bit of context before we get into today's conversation because it's it's a conversation that I think a lot of IT leaders are having right now, whether they they want to or not.
00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:28.480
So back in late 2023, Broadcom closed its$69 billion acquisition of VMware, the virtualization platform that if you run servers, you've almost certainly touched.
00:00:28.559 --> 00:00:32.960
And in the the two plus years since VMware's licensing has been completely overhauled, right?
00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:34.799
Perpetual licenses are gone.
00:00:35.039 --> 00:00:42.799
Everything's subscription only and priced per core, and thousands of individual products got consolidated into a handful of big bundles.
00:00:43.359 --> 00:00:49.920
And the result is uh renewal quotes coming in at two, three, sometimes ten times what companies were paying before.
00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:54.640
And there are actually industry reports of increases north of a thousand percent in extreme cases.
00:00:54.719 --> 00:01:00.159
And surveys actually suggesting roughly half of VMware customers are actively evaluating alternatives.
00:01:00.640 --> 00:01:10.239
And the group feeling this uh the hardest isn't the Fortune 500, it's small and mid-market businesses, companies running a handful of hosts who suddenly got enterprise-shaped invoices.
00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:16.560
So today we're going to be digging into all that, what that moment actually looks like from the inside, and what the realistic options are.
00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:21.920
With someone who lives in this world every day, Michael Oaheon is with Nexus Managed Cloud.
00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:29.519
Nexus is a managed cloud platform that brings together some names you might know, LiquidWeb and servers.com, all into one ecosystem.
00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:40.560
And they've built an entire practice around helping companies navigate exactly this situation, including a private cloud offering where they host your VMware environment and uh absorb the licensing themselves.
00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:43.359
So I'm really uh excited to have Michael here today.
00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:44.959
Michael, welcome to the podcast.
00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:46.079
Glad you could join us.
00:01:46.400 --> 00:01:47.439
Yeah, I appreciate it, Bo.
00:01:47.680 --> 00:01:48.560
Thanks for having me.
00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:54.719
So um, let's get right into the basics here um because I want to make sure everyone's sort of oriented uh with what's been going on.
00:01:54.799 --> 00:01:58.400
Tell us a little bit about um Nexus Managed Cloud first and foremost.
00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:01.599
Maybe you can help uh describe what the platform does.
00:02:02.000 --> 00:02:02.239
Sure.
00:02:02.480 --> 00:02:07.920
So Nexus Managed Cloud, to your point, has been a collection of two companies, LiquidWeb and Servers.com.
00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:16.639
LiquidWeb, uh traditional web hosting provider, which eventually went up market and started providing managed cloud solutions uh through their 29 years of being around.
00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:20.879
Thereafter, servers.com, high performance, dedicated infrastructure.
00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:32.159
Uh, we brought them together to create a unified story, really a managed service provider for mid-market enterprises, you know, and being able to give them the opportunity to have everything under one roof.
00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:40.080
You know, we can do web hosting, we can do server management, we can do Windows, Linux, large infrastructure, as well as manage cloud infrastructure.
00:02:40.159 --> 00:02:52.319
And so, you know, kind of that one throat to choke, let's say, uh, you know, you have one organization to call, you don't have to worry about having five different vendors that, oh, this is my dedicated server company, this is my web hosting provider, this is who does this.
00:02:52.479 --> 00:03:03.280
You know, the collection of the companies really give a breath of fresh air to the market that customers can come to us and ultimately expect us to host all of their different infrastructure platforms under one roof.
00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:04.319
Okay, I love that.
00:03:04.400 --> 00:03:06.800
Like one-stop shop sort of offering it here.
00:03:06.960 --> 00:03:12.800
Um, what kind of businesses uh or workloads are sort of the best fit for the Nexus Managed Cloud platform?
00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:16.319
So definitely we service a lot of people in the SB mid-market.
00:03:16.560 --> 00:03:17.919
Um, we are highly compliant.
00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:25.039
So everywhere from SOC2 Type 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, uh, CMMICC.
00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:34.639
So we're working with credit unions, financial institutions, healthcare organizations that really want to make sure that their infrastructure is compliant, secure, reliable, redundant.
00:03:34.800 --> 00:03:39.840
We have a very large data center in Lansing, Michigan, among several other data centers uh located globally.
00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:46.080
So really giving our customers that peace of mind that their infrastructure is safe, secure, and managed.
00:03:46.400 --> 00:03:46.719
Okay.
00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:59.039
So is it fair to say that it's sort of the companies you're you're working with, um, they're big enough that, you know, obviously downtime technical issues really hurt the companies, but they're not so big that they've got maybe a 40-person IT department, right?
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:00.159
Exactly.
00:04:00.319 --> 00:04:03.520
That's where we we help augment a lot of our customers.
00:04:03.680 --> 00:04:06.879
You know, they don't have a large team or they don't have the budget to have a large team.
00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:20.000
You know, you look at all these different things you have to manage as a business, you know, it's not only the network, the firewalls, and then down to the storage and the virtualization and the management of the virtual machines or physical servers.
00:04:20.160 --> 00:04:24.000
You need multiple people that know those things very well if you want to do it right.
00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:32.560
So if you're a SMB mid-market, you need a network engineer, you need a VMware engineer, you need a server engineer.
00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:36.879
And next thing you know, you have to have this large team if you really want to do it right.
00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:39.759
And that's where Nexus comes in to augment that.
00:04:39.839 --> 00:04:44.160
And it also allows your teams to work on the bigger projects that drive revenue.
00:04:44.319 --> 00:04:46.959
Infrastructure doesn't drive revenue in a business.
00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:53.040
It just doesn't, depending on obviously if you're a SaaS organization or similar, of course, it does in some way, shape, or form.
00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:58.399
But if you're a credit union or healthcare system, you know, those things really aren't truly driving revenue.
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.120
They're just to maintain the business so you can actually operate.
00:05:01.279 --> 00:05:12.160
And so what we do is let us take over all of those workloads and the day-to-day of the business, the updates, the management, the responding to alerts when things happen, the deployment of servers.
00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:18.160
So then you can take your team and focus on things that can actually drive growth or drive revenue within your business.
00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:31.519
Yeah, those SMB uh and mid-market companies, I mean, they're they're a huge slice of the market and really they're sort of the exact slice that's kind of been squeezed by what's been happening uh in licensing lately, which of course we will get into.
00:05:31.759 --> 00:05:36.399
But before we get into the VMware side of things specifically, um, I want to zoom out a little bit.
00:05:36.480 --> 00:05:40.160
You you talked, uh, you obviously talked to a lot of SMB mid-market IT leaders.
00:05:40.319 --> 00:05:45.120
What's like the biggest shift you're seeing in how these companies just think about their infrastructure right now?
00:05:45.439 --> 00:05:52.000
Yeah, it interestingly enough, I think, you know, if we take VMware out of the mix and let's just focus on the hyperscalers.
00:05:52.160 --> 00:05:55.519
You know, the hyperscalers took a huge portion of the market many, many years ago.
00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:59.120
You know, call 10 years ago, everybody wanted to be in AWS and Azure.
00:05:59.279 --> 00:06:06.560
And I think what people are realizing is putting those eggs in that basket is great, uh, but ultimately, you know, you you lose cost control.
00:06:06.720 --> 00:06:10.959
You know, AWS doesn't provide you or Azure any management or they'll be alike.
00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:19.120
You use your infrastructure, you get a bill, and you know what, if you got a$10,000 overage that month, AWS or Azure is going to turn to you and say, where's our money?
00:06:19.199 --> 00:06:19.360
Right?
00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:21.759
They're not they're not gonna work with you to solve that problem.
00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:38.160
And so what I've also identified through these conversations is you know, so many platforms have now been built on top of AWS and Azure, and you have so many eggs in one basket that if something goes down on Azure, you know, uh let's use AWS had an S3 outage a couple years ago.
00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:40.720
You know, companies were down for two days almost.
00:06:40.879 --> 00:06:44.079
I think it was a 19-something hour outage by the time they got everything back up.
00:06:44.240 --> 00:06:51.839
And it comes to find out, all these IT leaders are like, oh, I didn't realize my SaaS tool was also on top of AWS, and and this platform was also on AWS.
00:06:51.920 --> 00:06:55.920
So now you have your infrastructure, you have your SaaS tools, and everything's on AWS.
00:06:56.079 --> 00:07:01.759
And what I think people are realizing is they have to be very careful of the systems they're deploying across the board.
00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:04.959
You know, I think we all want to be hybrid in some way, shape, or form.
00:07:05.040 --> 00:07:17.519
Um, but I think what's really happened through conversations is a lot of IT leaders didn't understand how many things they were actually putting in AWS, minus their just servers, whatever they were running, their workloads.
00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:19.040
And now we're shifting away from that.
00:07:19.120 --> 00:07:28.160
You know, some of them want to keep some stuff local on-prem, some want to keep backups in a different data center, some uh want to run it in a facility like us.
00:07:28.399 --> 00:07:36.480
And, you know, I think it's really identifying what a hybrid cloud strategy looks like is expanding than uh more than it's ever been.
00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:37.920
And that's what we're seeing.
00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:52.879
Uh people are looking for more predictable costs, making sure they're diversified when it comes to all of their tools and platforms and systems so that all their eggs aren't in one basket and and they can recover uh when they need to, uh, if there's an outage or or similar.
00:07:53.279 --> 00:08:01.040
It's unfortunate that it takes one of those outages to, you know, sort of illuminate the the tech stack and what's um where everything is kind of being run on and whatnot.
00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:14.079
But uh, you know, I I think that makes a really you make a really good point where you need to sort of have some backup plans, some alternatives, so it's not you don't have all your eggs in one basket because uh that just creates a massive headache when the inevitable sort of happens um of an outage.
00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:22.480
Um okay, so then let's talk about Broadcom a little bit and not just VMware, because that's you know not really exactly where the story starts, I would say.
00:08:22.800 --> 00:08:31.439
You know, I mentioned the in the intro about the the Broadcom acquisition and and kind of the the playbook they they brought to other acquisitions also before VMware.
00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:36.879
So CA uh technologies in 2018, uh Symantecs Enterprise Business in 2019.
00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:42.399
What's like the pattern you've seen in how they and how Broadcom operates once they take a company over?
00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:44.639
Yeah, it's a great, great question.
00:08:44.799 --> 00:08:58.960
And if we look at history, and we all know history repeats itself to some extent, shape, or form, Broadcom is known for really disrupting the end user with no care in the world of how they do that or what they do.
00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:03.759
It's all business decisions and they're they don't really think about the impact on the end user.
00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:06.080
It's all just what are the numbers?
00:09:06.240 --> 00:09:07.440
Do we make more money?
00:09:07.679 --> 00:09:12.159
Does it uh improve the company's multiple of value?
00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:16.879
And it's clear that they have done that with computer associates, semantic andor the like.
00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:22.399
I mean, I think when they acquired semantic within the first 12 months, they reduced a billion dollars worth of opex.
00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:26.559
That that's great on paper, but what did what probably happened with that?
00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:33.120
Uh they didn't just you know turn around and uh obviously not impact the end user because they probably cut support costs.
00:09:33.279 --> 00:09:37.600
So now people that are using semantic aren't getting the same level of support they used to get.
00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:40.480
And that's why they went and used maybe a premium provider.
00:09:40.559 --> 00:09:47.279
If we look at you know the market, when you can go and procure a security tool, backups tool, there's 20 of them out there, right?
00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:49.039
I don't think anybody can negate that.
00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:50.559
You know, you you have options.
00:09:50.720 --> 00:10:01.440
But now when you decided to go, which semantic and at its prime was one of the peak enterprise products, you know, ultimately you disrupted that entire market where you know people said, well, now I don't have good support.
00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:03.120
I'm paying a premium for your service.
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:04.320
There's other players in the market.
00:10:04.399 --> 00:10:05.120
So what happened?
00:10:05.279 --> 00:10:07.600
Those people decided to say, I'm gonna go buy something else.
00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:14.159
If you're you're gonna make me continue to pay a premium and you're gonna now reduce your operating costs, which means my support is impacted.
00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:18.480
I'm not getting that the SLA or the agreements I used to get, I'm gonna go elsewhere.
00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:22.799
Same thing with CA Technologies, Computer Associates, you know, was a brand that everybody knew.
00:10:22.879 --> 00:10:27.200
And I'm not saying that we we don't anymore, but you don't hear their name come up as much anymore.
00:10:27.279 --> 00:10:30.960
You know, and they they they hyper focus on just a niche and that's okay.
00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:44.960
But what's the problem is they affect everybody else downstream, you know, and that's just broadcom strategy is, you know, and it's been clear with this whole VMware thing, they've shown that they they don't have a care in the world for the SMB, the mid-market.
00:10:45.200 --> 00:10:49.120
You know, they've put their stamp and said, we're going enterprise, and that's all we care about.
00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:55.200
And they could have done it in a different way, in my opinion, and said, hey, you know, this is the direction of our company.
00:10:55.279 --> 00:10:58.159
In three years, you'd have to migrate elsewhere, give people time.
00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:06.799
Nope, they just turned around and said, let's go ahead and increase everybody by tier point earlier, two, four, 10x renewals with no time to make it happen.
00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:13.200
And now people are left to just take these extra operating costs, find a way to put them into their budget.
00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:14.799
And it's just traditional.
00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.600
Like Broadcom has continued to do this time and time again.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.159
Yeah, we we've read the, we've read the headlines.
00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:25.600
Um, I we cover a lot of the stories overall on Slashdot, and and there's a lot of definitely some unpleasant effects.
00:11:25.679 --> 00:11:33.519
And but but like when you read the headlines, you don't really necessarily hear about all the the ripple effects and negative consequences and just what exactly is going on.
00:11:33.679 --> 00:11:40.080
Um we don't we know that it's not good, and it's great to hear to your sentiment and your your feedback on you know having an inside look at this.
00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:54.960
Maybe you could walk us through some of the you know the changes and like what's happening because you know, obviously Broadcom has has turned a routine renewal into a sort of six-figure conversation for a lot of teams, which is very stressful and impactful.
00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:59.759
What does that moment look like from the inside, like when a customer opens that quote for the first time?
00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:01.679
I'm sure it's sticker shock.
00:12:01.759 --> 00:12:03.519
You know, and we've heard it from our customers.
00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:10.720
Uh, we've, you know, being a service provider, we're in a little bit of a different position than somebody that might have procured uh licensing direct through VMware.
00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:12.159
The, you know, there's two different channels.
00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:18.639
You can either go direct to VMware or through one of the distributors to procure it for your own private cloud infrastructure in your data closet.
00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:34.080
Or traditionally, you were able to get it through a service provider such as us, where you'd come to us, we would be able to essentially rent you the licensing on a monthly basis or a yearly contract, depending on what you were looking to commit to, um, for a fair and reasonable price for a premium virtualization platform.
00:12:34.159 --> 00:12:37.759
You know, VMware, there's nothing we we cannot take away anything from VMware.
00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:43.039
They have been one of the most reliable virtualization platforms for decades at this point.
00:12:43.360 --> 00:12:47.919
And, you know, now you see this invoice and you just say, what am I supposed to do?
00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:53.840
You know, now I go from paying, let's use a hypothetical number,$1,000 a month for my licensing to now$10,000.
00:12:54.240 --> 00:13:07.039
That's a material amount of money for an SMB or mid-market organization that is already thin on budgets, that is trying to figure out how they keep the lights on and stop the firefighting because that's just what happens in IT.
00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:08.720
That's what we're doing all day long.
00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:18.960
And so you see that and you're just, you I feel like you're just in quicksand and you you have no idea how to get out of it because now you have to find the dollars to take care of this because you can't migrate quick.
00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:27.360
It's not easy to do a large-scale migration in 30 days or 60 days or 90 days among the 30 other projects that you have going on at the same time.
00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:35.519
And so now you have to balance where you may, you might have wanted to get off VMware for a while, but it's stable, it was reliable.
00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:36.720
And why?
00:13:37.200 --> 00:13:38.080
Things were operating.
00:13:38.159 --> 00:13:39.600
You had other business priorities.
00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:49.200
Well, now you're forced to make this a business priority and you got to find a way to fit it into your strategy because I can tell you, not many CFOs are gonna wake up in the morning and say, no problem.
00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:52.879
Oh, our VMware pricing is going up from a thousand to ten thousand dollars a month.
00:13:53.120 --> 00:13:54.240
We'll figure it out.
00:13:54.480 --> 00:13:57.679
No, you know, the conversation is, well, how are we gonna solve that?
00:13:57.840 --> 00:13:59.840
Because we can't, we can't take that cost.
00:14:00.080 --> 00:14:05.519
And so, you know, ultimately, they're all at this point, you know, struggling to decide what they need to do.
00:14:05.679 --> 00:14:08.879
Are they gonna do it on their own and just get a new virtualization platform?
00:14:09.039 --> 00:14:13.759
Well, then you need new engineers that knew the know the new virtualization platform.
00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.799
You have to stand it up, you got to migrate it, you got to configure it.
00:14:16.960 --> 00:14:21.600
You're you're learning, you're you're kind of like flying the plane as you're putting it together, right?
00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:26.559
And and that's really hard for SMB and mid-market organizations to do among the other priorities.
00:14:26.720 --> 00:14:29.039
So it's sticker shock, it's frustration.
00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.720
And I think some of it, you know, is really disappointing.
00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:43.120
You know, the you've now had VMware for 10 years or 15 years, you've been loyal, especially as imagine being an IT provider who every company you went into, you took VMware with you.
00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:48.240
You went and you said, Oh, we're gonna go with VMware, they're reliable, they're stable, they're gonna keep our systems up and running.
00:14:48.399 --> 00:14:55.039
And now that 15 or 20 years of loyalty, you're just told, hey, here's here's your new bill.
00:14:55.120 --> 00:14:56.879
Uh, and if you like it, great.
00:14:57.039 --> 00:14:58.720
If you don't, oh well.
00:14:59.039 --> 00:15:00.639
That's a really tough conversation.
00:15:01.519 --> 00:15:02.480
It is disappointing, yeah.
00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:08.960
And the detail that gets me is just the it's the same servers doing the same work, nothing's really changed on the customer side, right?
00:15:09.039 --> 00:15:10.720
No growth, no new workloads.
00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:18.799
But you have here you have the bill doubling, tripling, and then the time pressure being baked into it, and you miss your renewal dates, like you know, mentioning earlier.
00:15:18.879 --> 00:15:20.480
There's there's the penalties that are waiting.
00:15:20.639 --> 00:15:24.480
So it's just uh a frantic, you know, big number and a ticking clock.
00:15:24.559 --> 00:15:29.360
And yeah, man, the and then and then licensing, the licensing itself is really only the visible part of the cost, right?
00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:32.000
Because there's the whole sort of second invoice that never shows up.
00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.240
Um what are some of the talk about some of the costs?
00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:38.559
Like what are some of the costs that show up that leadership maybe didn't budget for?
00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:44.000
Yeah, I I mean the the costs that show up because of this is not just the licensing fees, right?
00:15:44.080 --> 00:15:50.000
It's the now you need to go likely procure new hardware because you got to keep your existing infrastructure up and running.
00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:56.080
So you can't just say, hey, we're gonna move to Nutanix, you know, name the virtualization platform out there.
00:15:56.240 --> 00:16:01.279
You now have to go procure brand new equipment because you got to keep the lights on on the existing infrastructure.
00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:04.799
You then have to pay licensing for that new provider.
00:16:04.879 --> 00:16:13.279
You know, and though we have a great partnership with Nutanix and we work through these things, there might be other virtualization platforms that say, we're not giving you a path to get there.
00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:16.000
You have to start paying us the minute you provision the infrastructure.
00:16:16.159 --> 00:16:20.159
So now you stand up all this new hardware, which you have to procure.
00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:25.840
And hardware right now is through the roof due to the growth of AI and everything going on in that market.
00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:28.720
You then have to have it installed.
00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:34.320
You have to potentially have new network equipment, you have to have somebody that actually knows how to get this up and running.
00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:38.080
So you're gonna pay an operating cost or professional service fee to get it up.
00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:44.399
Then you're gonna have to migrate that infrastructure from VMware to Nutanix or whatever virtualization platform you choose.
00:16:44.639 --> 00:16:52.879
So you're paying a cost for that, whether it's an internal cost, um, it's still a cost because now that employee or whomever you're having do it isn't working on new projects.
00:16:53.039 --> 00:16:56.240
They're working on this thing that they didn't anticipate to work on this year.
00:16:56.399 --> 00:17:02.080
And then it's maybe the virtualization platform that you're moving to is even a little bit more expensive than VMware.
00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:10.480
So you're now paying VMware while you migrate off, you're buying new hardware, you're paying the new virtualization platform, whatever their monthly fees are.
00:17:10.720 --> 00:17:12.640
And it's it's really, really costly.
00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:20.480
You know, it's, I mean, just to migrate alone, you're probably looking at several hundred thousand dollars that you didn't anticipate just to get off of VMware.
00:17:20.640 --> 00:17:25.039
Oh, wait, by the way, VMware is saying you still have to pay us for the next six months.
00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:31.359
And so now I maybe I migrate off, but I still have to finish paying VMware because I had a contract with them.
00:17:31.680 --> 00:17:33.759
So it's just it's brutal.
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:34.400
Wow.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:35.680
Yeah, what a nightmare.
00:17:35.759 --> 00:17:36.799
Uh okay, crazy.
00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:38.880
So we've we've established the problem, absolutely.
00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:46.240
And I think anyone who's listening who's been through a recent renewal is is definitely very much here with us, nodding along.
00:17:46.400 --> 00:18:02.240
Uh, when a business decides, you know, to move to a managed cloud environment, whether that's keeping VMware under new management or sort of leaving it behind entirely, how does how does that transition, what does that transition actually look like from the first maybe conversation you're having to just everything being said and done?
00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:07.519
So, you know, we what we like to do is we take like to take over as much responsibility as you like us to.
00:18:07.680 --> 00:18:08.480
We're flexible.
00:18:08.640 --> 00:18:12.720
Some of our customers, you know, turn around and say, hey, we just want you to manage the infrastructure.
00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:18.640
We'll manage the guest operating systems, we'll do all the firewalls, we'll bring our own firewall, we have our own network deployment.
00:18:18.720 --> 00:18:20.880
So it's very, very flexible across the board.
00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:25.839
But ultimately, you know, from the minute we have our conversation, we're going to scope all those things out.
00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:31.440
You know, option A, option B, option C, kind of pick which which route or path you want to take.
00:18:31.599 --> 00:18:34.000
Again, Nexus is flexible to the outcome.
00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:46.400
And so from there, what we do is with our sales engineers and team, we scope out a migration strategy and we really identify kind of what VMs or servers can we take over as they sit, or which ones maybe we might want to build net new.
00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:47.839
And we'll use an example.
00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:57.599
Let's just say you're running a Windows virtual server that's uh Windows 2013 and you really want to get to Windows 2016, 2020, whatever name the version.
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:03.119
Maybe we'll stand up brand new servers on our infrastructure, but then migrate everything else as they sit.
00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:11.839
So we'll use our replication tools, our backup tools to get all of your servers in their current state uh over to our infrastructure, which we deploy, we manage, we configure.
00:19:12.079 --> 00:19:14.799
Customer doesn't need to worry about anything of that nature.
00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:17.440
We take care of all of that with our onboarding engineers.
00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:20.240
They're gonna get a project manager through this entire process.
00:19:20.319 --> 00:19:23.279
They're gonna get a team of engineers that are dedicated to the migration.
00:19:23.519 --> 00:19:32.000
So take everything, lift and shift, maybe build net new where it makes sense, and then ultimately develop an entire strategy on how we're gonna do things.
00:19:32.160 --> 00:19:39.759
Then we're gonna make uh essentially a playbook of what we're gonna cut over first, because what we're not gonna do is we're not gonna take, let's just say you have 50 servers.
00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:43.039
We're not gonna say, hey, on Sunday night, let's cut everything over.
00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:44.079
That doesn't make sense.
00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:49.440
We bridge the two environments together, the best of our ability to do so, depending on the customer's network and hours.
00:19:49.519 --> 00:20:00.160
Uh, and then what we'll do is we'll naturally, after we replicate and print things over, we'll schedule multiple windows over the course of a few months, depending how large the infrastructure is, to cut things over in chunks.
00:20:00.319 --> 00:20:11.920
So maybe we take your web applications and database servers, we pick uh day to do that, we cut those over, we overhaul your network and how you how the internet speaks to it, whether we're bridging our networks together.
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:14.960
There's a lot of different ways, and we don't need to get in the complexity of that.
00:20:15.119 --> 00:20:17.759
But we have the team that has done this time and time again.
00:20:17.920 --> 00:20:21.440
We figure out what those nuances are and ultimately build a plan around it.
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:28.240
So you sign up with us depending on your environment, depending on how sizable it is, depending how mission critical some of the workloads are.
00:20:28.319 --> 00:20:30.640
Sometimes we want to be a little bit like crawl, walk, run.
00:20:30.960 --> 00:20:35.440
Let's get some of the development servers over first, then we'll do these, then we'll do that.
00:20:35.519 --> 00:20:51.279
Um, but we architect an entire strategy around that to make sure that we limit and uh obviously mitigate downtime or impact to your business, um, and can do that sometimes in a month and sometimes in two to three months, depending again the size of your environment.
00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:53.680
Uh I want to underline that that first option.
00:20:53.759 --> 00:20:59.920
I think it was the first option where where um you don't necessarily have to sort of leave VMware, right, to escape the licensing problem.
00:21:00.000 --> 00:21:06.480
You're it's like you can your environment, your tooling, your sort of the muscle memory that your team has sort of instilled into the platform.
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:12.880
Um they're all intact, but the licensing exposure kind of moves off the books, right, onto the Nexus platform when they partner with you guys.
00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:15.599
I I think that's a really enticing sort of approach.
00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:19.039
You don't have to like rip everything out and just sort of restart the operation.
00:21:19.759 --> 00:21:27.839
And uh the migration piece too matters too, because you know, who actually does the move is is the question that I think probably kills a lot of the projects uh before they even get started.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:38.079
So that brings me to you know the folks listening who who knows they know something's wrong, but they haven't really done anything about it yet because again, the problem just feels too big to really even start.
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:44.480
What's the what's the first like lowest risk step for a team that suspects they need to change, but they just don't know where to start?
00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:51.279
Yeah, I think you know lowest risk really comes down to uh you know all of your workloads and your footprint.
00:21:51.599 --> 00:21:57.599
And so, you know, sometimes what we've done with customers is uh, you know, they know they need to reduce some of their cost.
00:21:58.000 --> 00:21:59.440
So take the the m less.
00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:02.480
Critical infrastructure and move it over to us first.
00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:07.920
And then you hay a lower licensing model potentially if you can downsize your VMware environment.
00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:22.799
Because what VMware did, which is really, really the thing that is 2Xing, 3Xing, 4X in cost, is they went from a model where you were able to license based on your provisioned infrastructure from a virtualization standpoint.
00:22:23.039 --> 00:22:35.599
So meaning, let's just say you had uh 10 virtual servers and they all had 100 gigabytes of memory, they would basically charge you a monthly rate for the memory that you have provisioned on your VMs.
00:22:35.680 --> 00:22:38.960
It had nothing to do with the physical underlying infrastructure.
00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:44.640
Well, the reason why they're for X in costs is because they ultimately said, we're getting rid of that model.
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:48.799
Whatever your physical footprint is, even if you're not using it.
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:53.759
So if you have a physical server running 32 cores, we're gonna charge you for 32 cores.
00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:58.319
But the customer's saying, well, I don't need 32 cores, I'm only using 12 or 16.
00:22:58.400 --> 00:23:00.240
They're like, yeah, but that's what the physical hardware is.
00:23:00.400 --> 00:23:01.839
So that's what we're charging you on.
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:09.440
And so that is one of the biggest things where it's, you know, you're you're taking these people that have deployed infrastructure with the anticipation that they're gonna grow into it.
00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:10.400
They're not there yet.
00:23:10.559 --> 00:23:16.640
But now you're you're gonna tell them, hey, I know you want to grow into this hardware, but we're still gonna charge you more for it anyway.
00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:22.400
And so where we've been able to help people is they're saying, hey, I can't get into a big migration right now.
00:23:22.559 --> 00:23:26.559
I have to keep my mission critical workloads because we have Black Friday coming up.
00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:29.200
We have this, we have that, we cannot disrupt that.
00:23:29.359 --> 00:23:34.559
But through the renewal, we say, okay, well, how about we get this infrastructure that's not as mission critical?
00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:38.480
That allows you to reduce your physical footprint in your current environment.
00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:44.160
And then once you're past that issue or hurdle preventing you from migrating, then we'll migrate the rest.
00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:50.160
And then you can be totally either off VMware or in our cloud running VMware, really up to the customer.
00:23:50.240 --> 00:23:54.960
Um, but that's ultimately how we've helped and low-hanging fruit we can absorb.
00:23:55.279 --> 00:24:01.519
Now, now, once a business is on uh a managed cloud with Nexus, what does that ongoing relationship look like?
00:24:01.599 --> 00:24:04.960
Like what's your team sort of doing week to week that a customer doesn't see?
00:24:05.599 --> 00:24:08.559
So ultimately we're managing all of the infrastructure.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:10.960
We're responding to alerts, issues, problems.
00:24:11.119 --> 00:24:12.240
Infrastructure breaks down.
00:24:12.400 --> 00:24:13.359
No different than a car.
00:24:13.519 --> 00:24:18.720
You know, you could get in it tomorrow, and next thing you know, you have a leak somewhere and you have to take care of it, right?
00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.160
Same thing with infrastructure.
00:24:20.319 --> 00:24:25.200
And so uh our team is monitoring, responding, remediating whenever something happens.
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:29.599
Two in the morning, four in the morning, Saturday at 5 a.m., it's on us.
00:24:29.759 --> 00:24:42.880
So, you know, rather than that IT team that's working for an organization getting that phone call that a hypervisor is down, sand storage having an issue, one of the virtual machines is um offline and not on.
00:24:43.119 --> 00:24:54.079
Those are alerts that our team is ingesting 247365 responding, and then also informing the customer of, hey, just want to let you know here's an issue, we're responding to it and fixing it, remeeting AA.
00:24:54.400 --> 00:25:02.640
And that gives you IT teams such a peace of mind that they're not the ones getting the phone call at two o'clock or whatever you know the time might be.
00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:08.079
And so then ongoing relationship is where we're gonna we're gonna look at the performance of everything.
00:25:08.160 --> 00:25:09.759
We're gonna provide recommendations.
00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.279
Hey, these servers and virtual machines are doing this on a regular basis.
00:25:13.359 --> 00:25:17.279
It looks like we see XYZ is happening to your CPU and memory.
00:25:17.440 --> 00:25:21.839
Here is what we advise to solve that problem, or hey, maybe we need to do this instead.
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:23.920
And so that's all of our responsibility.
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:32.960
You know, not only is it just keeping the lights on, it's performance enhancement as well, and making sure that you're gonna get better performance, you're gonna get better redundancy, you're gonna get better reliability.
00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:34.400
And that's all ownership on us.
00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:36.400
And that's what our team is expected to do.
00:25:36.559 --> 00:25:47.039
So for our SMB mid-market customers, not only do they get an account manager and a solutions engineer who is tied to their account, uh, they also get a CSM and technical account manager.
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:55.920
That these are the individuals that are doing these things on a regular basis, doing your QBRs with you every quarter, making sure we're we're solving problems, making sure we're giving you more advice.
00:25:56.079 --> 00:26:04.880
And then, you know, ultimately, hopefully we're just a really good partner so that again, you can focus on higher leveraged tasks while we manage all of the back end.
00:26:05.279 --> 00:26:05.759
I love that.
00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:11.039
Yeah, that's that I think it's fair to say that like, you know, the best infrastructure is really the kind that you don't have to think about too much.
00:26:11.119 --> 00:26:16.240
And I think there's something almost like funny about just paying for work specifically so you never see it.
00:26:16.400 --> 00:26:18.240
But but that's the that's the trade-off, right?
00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:26.880
When you would to avoid all those technical issues that seem to happen at the worst time, you know, like Black Friday, um, whenever it's it, you don't want to have to experience that.
00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:35.759
And so yeah, partnering with you guys to take care of a lot of the the behind-the-scenes stuff is is um, I can imagine, really uh valuable and sort of an enticing offer.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:48.640
And there's another piece of the the bundle that I also want to call it specifically because it's usually, from what I understand, sold as sort of a separate, a totally separate product by a totally separate company, and that's uh backup and disaster recovery.
00:26:48.880 --> 00:26:55.279
So maybe you can talk about like why does Nexus bundle that into the managed cloud instead of leaving it to somebody else?
00:26:56.079 --> 00:27:03.119
Yeah, I think you know what the market has always shown software companies are really good at being software companies.
00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:06.000
What they're not good at is the managed services piece.
00:27:06.160 --> 00:27:18.240
And there's a reason why, if we take AWS, for instance, they don't offer managed services because it's it's just a much different kind of strength that you need to really be a managed service provider.
00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:24.640
And the the problem is if we take backups into SS or cover and we'll use a Cronus, who is our partner in that space.
00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:30.559
You know, they only offer one portion of what you need for managed infrastructure.
00:27:30.720 --> 00:27:32.799
They offer backups in disaster recovery.
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:38.880
Now actually they're offering security, EDR, and MDR, but ultimately they don't offer all of it.
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:40.880
They don't maybe have a virtualization side of it.
00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:41.440
They don't have this.
00:27:41.519 --> 00:27:45.920
So now you have this mishmosh of, well, I got this vendor for this and I got this vendor for that.
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.079
And when I have an issue, I got to call a Cronus.
00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:50.240
Well, again, one roof.
00:27:50.400 --> 00:27:54.079
Now you have Nexus who can provide all of those services for you.
00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:57.440
You have one number to call anytime you need support.
00:27:57.599 --> 00:28:00.079
You don't need to worry about the pointing fingers.
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:03.599
It's like that Spider-Man meme where it's like, no, it's him, him, him, him.
00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:05.759
And, you know, that's what people are looking for.
00:28:05.920 --> 00:28:14.880
You know, the the blame game of that's gone on for decades and decades where it's like, well, you know, it's not VMware's issue, it's this issue, it's that, it's it's this provider.
00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:21.680
And if, you know, you just get into the point where imagine being an IT vendor and you're like, I don't care whose problem it is, I just want it taken care of.
00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:22.720
I just need it fixed.
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:26.000
I need my backups up, I need my recovery, I need this.
00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:36.400
And so that's why Nexus, you know, really comes in as a strong managed player because we partner with all of these different software organizations as well as technologies to bring that together for you.
00:28:36.559 --> 00:28:39.599
As the IT leader, you have one phone call to make.
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:43.440
We will help navigate all of the issues and you can go again.
00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:46.240
It all comes back to bringing value to the business.
00:28:46.400 --> 00:28:57.039
Your IT team can now make that new payment platform or whatever you're thinking, and not have to worry about all these other nuances so that you can go drive growth for the business.
00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:01.359
I want to bring sort of the conversation home with this one last question I have for you.
00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:11.440
If someone listening is sort of staring down a VMware renewal or just maybe rethinking their infrastructure in general, what's the the one question they should ask before they decide?
00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:16.000
Do you plan on staying with VMware or do you want to move?
00:29:16.480 --> 00:29:20.319
And I think that should help dictate your next steps.
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:34.960
Um, because ultimately, hopefully, people will realize you don't want to be with a virtualization platform that is just on a whim, going to make really critical decisions to impact you because if they did it once, they're probably going to do it again.
00:29:35.359 --> 00:29:41.440
So I I would challenge people to think, do I want to even stay with VMware knowing what I know?
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:43.839
And then that should dictate kind of your next steps.
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.000
That's the perfect note to end on.
00:29:46.079 --> 00:29:48.400
Yeah, because the renewal quote isn't isn't really decision.
00:29:48.480 --> 00:29:59.599
The decision is is is what the next three you know years looks like and whether you want to kind of keep renting a you know uh a seat on someone else's pricing roller coaster or just get to a number you can actually plan around.
00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:00.880
Yeah, that's that's great.
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:02.799
Michael, thank you so much for for coming on.
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:10.319
This is genuinely really useful, and I appreciate all the information you shared and and just describing and explaining what's been going on here.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:22.000
Because I I read a lot of the headlines and hear kind of the the overview of the disgruntlement and uh disappointment of the Broadcom VMware situation, but hearing it firsthand is is really insightful.
00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:23.680
So appreciate that.
00:30:23.839 --> 00:30:30.000
Um for anyone who you know is interested in learning more about Nexus, the Nexus Managed Cloud, uh, where's the best place to go?
00:30:31.039 --> 00:30:31.680
On our website.
00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:34.559
You know, we have plenty of call to actions and places to contact us.
00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:36.000
There's a phone number on there as well.
00:30:36.079 --> 00:30:40.079
So Nexus.com and uh one of our team members will be happy to help.
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:41.119
Perfect.
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:44.720
Nexus.com, and then we can uh get in contact with you over on LinkedIn, I assume.
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:45.759
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:46.799
Perfect.
00:30:46.960 --> 00:30:49.279
All right, we'll drop links in the description and the show notes.
00:30:49.359 --> 00:30:50.319
Um, thanks again, Michael.
00:30:50.400 --> 00:30:51.599
I appreciate everything.
00:30:52.160 --> 00:30:54.559
Thank you for listening to the SourceForge podcast.
00:30:54.640 --> 00:30:56.240
I am your host, Bo Hamilton.
00:30:56.400 --> 00:31:00.880
Make sure to subscribe to stay up to date with all of our upcoming B2B software related podcasts.
00:31:01.119 --> 00:31:02.720
I will talk to you in the next one.
