This is the announcement many of us have been waiting for since the Broadcom acquisition. Google Cloud and Broadcom have officially enabled VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) license portability for GCVE.

What is VCF Portability?

Simply put, you can now decouple the hardware cost from the software cost. Previously, when you bought a node (like ve1-standard), the price included the VMware SDDC stack license. Now, you can purchase “hardware-only” nodes from Google and apply your own VCF licenses purchased directly from Broadcom.

Why should you care?

1. Cost Savings: If you have a massive Enterprise Agreement (EA) with Broadcom, your per-core cost might be lower than what was bundled by Google.
2. Flexibility: You can move licenses between on-prem and cloud.
3. Future Proofing: As we approach October 2025 (more on that in a future post), this will become the standard way to consume GCVE.

Summary

This is the first step in a major shift in how we buy cloud VMware resources. Check your entitlements in the Broadcom portal before spinning up your next Private Cloud!