Broadcom’s ongoing changes to VMware’s licensing and distribution channels have created a wave of enterprise concern that is propelling potential alternatives, with OpenStack the most recent to throw its hat into that ring.

The Open Infrastructure Foundation, which houses the long-standing open source project, recently noted that 82% of its members have received interest from an organization looking for a VMware alternative. That survey also found 61% of members have already successfully migrated a VMware customer to an OpenStack-based product.

That’s significant momentum for OpenStack, which while still a significant base for open source-based infrastructure in production – more than 45 million cores in production, according to the Open Infrastructure Foundation – has been somewhat overshadowed by many of the newer open source infrastructure platforms like Kuberentes.

Will licensing challenges and price increases prompt a change?

Roy Chua, founder and principal at analyst firm AvidThink, said this new level in OpenStack interest is “because of the licensing challenges and the increase” in VMware pricing that is hitting the market.

Chua explained that this pricing challenge is most likely to impact larger organizations that have deep VMware integration, and which are more likely to see a pricing surge.

“There are those small installations that might only see a 40%, 50%, 60% increase, and for that maybe you just pay the difference,” Chua said, adding that deeper installations could drive an infrastructure rethink toward something like OpenStack.

“Think about the carriers,” Chua said. “Carriers have a large back office operation around IT and a lot of them are actually VMware customers. VMware leveraged that IT relationship to try to bring VMware into the telco cloud, the front-end network functions. And now it could be interesting that those carriers who have some OpenStack on the front end in terms of the network functions, could actually look at that as now a back-office platform, sort of reverse of what VMware leveraged, so going backwards. I'm seeing some interest in that.”

This step back could have OpenStack replacing VMware staples like vSphere and vCloud implementations.

Analysts have been noting the possibility of enterprises seeking open source alternatives to VMware, with many citing hypervisor options like Hyper V, the Linux kernel-based virtual machine (KVM), Proxmox and Oracle. This could help alleviate the threat of increased pricing tied to Broadcom’s pricing changes.

Forrester Research recently released a report that found “one VMware client shared that they’re experiencing a 500% price increase based on their current use of VMware products and how it maps to the new licensing and packaging.”

Naveen Chhabra, principal analyst at Forrester Research and author of the report, told SDxCentral that these pricing changes were not unexpected and that he and his team had predicted 20% of the world’s largest enterprises “will start to exit – read these words very carefully – will start to exit the VMware stack.”

“They will not do a full replacement overnight, but in parts, they will start to move away,” Chhabra said. “I clearly see that happening right now and I don’t need to go another five months to claim that that prediction was true. It is happening.”

Are Broadcom’s VMware moves a win-win?

This exodus is also opening up opportunities for VMware rivals.

Chua explained that VMware has been so entrenched in enterprise virtualization and private cloud operations that many of its rivals had steered their growth efforts in other directions. However, Broadcom’s recent moves are now providing those enterprises to reevaluate their long-term plans, which means new opportunities to steal some business.

This is especially important for vendors that have OpenStack support platforms.

“You could choose from Canonical, Mirantis, Red Hat and a couple of others. There are other options out there in the marketplace, so you get to choose,” Chua said. “And in the competitive market, I think it works better for the customer. It's not like the end where you don't have a choice.”

Chua also noted that Broadcom’s moves, while placing some of its customers into a difficult position, could in the end strengthen the broader ecosystem. Chua explained that Broadcom’s focus on its larger customers could allow it to garner more overall revenues than VMware’s previous attempt to blanket the market, leaving those customers that don’t make the new Broadcom cut as growth opportunities.

“It may actually be a win-win in terms of maybe Broadcom cares more about the quality of the profits than the size of the revenue, and that's [Broadcom CEO Hock Tan’s] style. And if that's the case, then he wins.” Chua said. “And then the Canonicals and the Red Hats and the rest of the world scales and all that can win too. And the customers may win because the customers who don't want to pay the premium for VMware end up paying that revenue stream to someone else. And maybe they're happy with it, because they don't feel like they're locked in. So it could be an interesting evolution in the market that I wasn't expecting.”