Practical guides for IT professionals navigating vSphere, Broadcom licensing, migration options, and home lab builds. No vendor spin. No fluff.
Licensing costs jumped 10x overnight for thousands of organizations. Here's an honest breakdown of your options — stay, migrate, or negotiate — with no vendor bias.
VCF, vSphere Foundation, and what you're actually paying for now
Proxmox, Nutanix, Hyper-V, and OpenStack — honest pros and cons
How to push back on Broadcom and what actually works
A working engineer's honest take on VMware vs Nutanix AHV — licensing, performance, management overhead, and when each actually makes sense for your environment.
Broadcom's acquisition triggered 150–1,000% price hikes. Complete guide to VMware alternatives in 2026 with real pricing and migration timelines.
A senior engineer's complete guide — covering the Import Wizard method, Windows VM gotchas, real pricing data, and what you'll miss after switching.
vSphere Standard is dead as of July 31, 2025. Here's the real comparison between VVF and what replaced Standard — plus who should pay for it and who should walk away.
Mini PCs with Intel NICs, 128GB RAM support, and NVMe storage — real hardware picks validated by William Lam and the VMware community.
VCF vs VVF pricing, the 72-core minimum, real-world cost examples, and what your renewal quote actually means. Plain English, no vendor spin.
Per-core pricing, the subscription-only mandate, and what happens if you don't renew. The real numbers, without the marketing fluff.
Complete VCSA 8 deployment walkthrough — from downloading the ISO to first login. Covers sizing, networking, and the gotchas that trip people up.
Broadcom's per-core subscription model has shocked VMware administrators. Real numbers, real scenarios — what your environment actually costs now.
Build a VMware home lab in 2026 without breaking the bank. Real hardware picks, ESXi free tier options, and nested lab strategies for under $500.
Build a fully functional VCF 9 nested lab on a single workstation. Step-by-step from SDDC Manager config to first workload deployment.
VCF vs VVF pricing, features, and minimum requirements in 2026. Real MSRP numbers, minimum node counts for VCF 9, and a straight recommendation for your environment.
The fastest way to get certified and stay sharp. Here's the gear I recommend — tested in a real home lab running vSphere 9.
All hardware verified on williamlam.com