Microsoft launched new licensing benefits and discounts to help VMware users migrate and run their workloads on the hyperscaler’s Azure VMware Solutions service, a path that many VMware customers are in the process of evaluating following recent licensing changes implemented by the vendor’s new parent company Broadcom.

Microsoft’s program is based on the VMware Rapid Migration Plan, which provides the licensing benefits and a level of price consistency for workloads moved to the Azure VMware Solution platform.

The migration program is offering users access to reserved instances at a set price over a set term of one, three or five years. These reserved instances are basically a way for a customer to pay upfront for the use of instances to run an application in Azure as opposed to a pay-as-you-go model, with the benefit of the reserved model charging less per instance.

Microsoft is incentivizing the reserve push by offering a 20% discount on Azure VMware Solution for customers purchasing a new one-year reserve instance term if that purchase is made before the end of the year. The hyperscaler also noted the five-year option will only be available for purchase through the end of June.

Microsoft is also providing up to $120,000 in Azure credit for customers that purchase a new reserved instance plan. This credit can be used for the Azure VMware Solution or other Azure services.

Customers can also purchase Microsoft’s Software Assurance product that will allow them to run Windows Server and SQL Server in Azure VMware Solution without additional licensing costs. This option also provides free Extended Security Updates for older versions of those products.

Microsoft launched its Azure VMware Solutions platform in 2019 as a collaboration between Microsoft, VMware and former VMware parent company Dell Technologies. The hybrid-cloud partnership allows customers to run VMware’s software stack in Microsoft’s Azure public cloud.

It’s built on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) – an integrated software stack with compute (vSphere), storage (vSAN) and network virtualization (NV) (NSX) that can be deployed on-premises as a private cloud or in public clouds. In this case it’s deployed in Azure.

The Azure product is similar to one VMware launched with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2016, which allows customers to run the same VMware software stack on-premises or in the AWS public cloud. The AWS-powered platform has been a critical success for VMware.

Google Cloud was added to the party in mid-2020.

Analysts have noted VMware’s work with public cloud hyperscalers like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud remains an important operating angle for the vendor.

“[VMware is] never going to go away. There’s always going to be a role for VMware virtualization technology,” Tracy Woo, senior analyst at Forrester Research, told SDxCentral in an earlier interview. “But it’s not going to be necessarily playing this outsized revenue engine for VMware that it has before. The moves that VMware has made to try to establish themselves in the world, where public cloud is the predominant player, haven’t been incredibly meaningful. They have been able to carve out small niche roles for themselves, but they haven’t necessarily been able to be factored in as a huge player there.”

Those huge players are increasingly the hyperscalers that continue to dominate the public cloud space and have a growing presence in the private cloud arena.

Flexera’s “State of the Cloud 2023” survey found Microsoft’s Azure Stack was the dominant private cloud technology being used by enterprises to run workloads. That was followed by AWS’ Outposts, Microsoft’s System Center and VMware’s vSphere/vCenter.

VMware has attempted to expand its influence into hybrid-cloud management using its Tanzu cloud-native platform, which helped push the vendor to a leadership position in that space according to Forrester’s ranking of hybrid-cloud management platforms.

Microsoft’s latest licensing and discount moves come a few months after the hyperscaler threw its support behind VMware’s new operating model, which was altered by new parent company Broadcom. That move was an important vote of confidence for VMware following a number of controversial licensing changes made by Broadcom, which Microsoft alluded to as part of the most recent offers.

“Like many customers today, you are probably reevaluating how to best run your VMware workloads and whether to keep them on-premises or move them to the cloud,” Omar Khan GM for Azure product marketing, wrote. “Whichever path you choose, it will require an investment of time and resources. This is an opportunity to consider your long-term platform strategy – so you spend your resources wisely to reduce technical debt while you set yourself up for success in the future.”

Broadcom and VMware have been busy attempting to clarify the myriad of changes, including several blog posts from Broadcom CEO Hock Tan.