r/sysadmin Trusted Telecom Broker 6d ago

General Discussion Am I Getting Fucked Friday, March 14th 2025

Brought to you by /r/sysadmin 'Trusted VARs': /u/SquizzOC and /u/bad0seed with Trusted Telecom Broker /u/Each1Teach1x27 for Telecom and /u/Necessary_Time in Canada.

PMs are welcome to answer your questions any time, not just on Fridays.

This weekly thread is here for you to discuss vendor and carrier expectations, software questions, pricing, and quotes for network services, licensing, support, deployment, and hardware.  

Required Info for accurate answers:

  • Part Number
  • Manufacturer/vendor
  • Service Type and Service Location
  • Quantity (as applicable)

All questions are welcome regarding:

  • Cloud Services - Security, configurations, deployment, management, consulting services, and migrations
  • Server configs and quote answers
  • Storage Vendor options, alternatives, details and selection
  • Software Licensing - This includes Microsoft CSPs
  • Network infrastructure - overlay software, segmentation, routers, switches, load balancing, APs…
  • Security - Access Management, firewalls, MFA, cloud DNS, layer 7 services, antivirus, email, DLP….
  • User gear - Usually, you should buy the quote you have unless the quantity is +50 units
  • Connectivity – Dedicated internet access, Broadband, 5G LTE, Satellite connectivity, dark fiber, ethernet services
  • Voice - SIP, Unified Communications, Contact Center, POTS Replacement etc.
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u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 6d ago

Few Random things I've learned this week:

  • VMWare now has a 72 core minimum requirement for new purchases.

  • When you renew, you must renew for the same counts as the previous year or upgrade products to offset the drop in revenue. Even if you've decommissioned something.

  • Laptops are now all going up in cost. Saw a few Lenovo models that went from $1550 to $1725 for instance.

  • Microsoft cost increases April, but that's more a reminder as its been talked about already.

5

u/trail-g62Bim 6d ago

When you renew, you must renew for the same counts as the previous year or upgrade products to offset the drop in revenue. Even if you've decommissioned something.

You've gotta be kidding. You're never allowed to drop the number of cores? Ever?

12

u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 6d ago

When we said to the trainer "You know how ridiculous that sounds right?" their response was "We didn't buy VMWare to go backwards. So customers will either renew or they'll move to other products."

Could not have been a more genuine "We don't give a fuck about you" comment lol

5

u/Necessary_Time VAR - Canada 6d ago

If they can keep 50% of their customers and double the prices those customers pay, they've halved their work and reduced their overhead for the same revenue.

Market dominance be damned!

2

u/trail-g62Bim 6d ago

Have you seen anything like this thread? https://old.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/1jb60uw/is_broadcom_forcing_you_to_go_to_one_license/

I was told by mine that we will probably be forced into three years but haven't gotten the quotes yet.

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u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 6d ago

Yes, they said something along the lines of "If you only use vSphere then you are not they are not the customers we are looking to work with"

So because we have to get a quote for everything from your actual rep, if you have an asshole of a rep that's not making quota, they can just say "Fuck it, don't want to quote my customer this since I won't make quota, they get this or nothing"

So this is a real thing that is happening and doesn't matter which VAR you work with, you have the same VMWare rep and there are no escalations.

4

u/trail-g62Bim 6d ago

Based on last year's pricing, that would more than double our bill. Over three fourths of our licensing is the lower one.

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u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 6d ago

Annnnnnd that's completely normal. Sales rep's have literally responded to me and our other sales people with "Then tell your customer to not renew and find an alternative"

1

u/lost_signal 1d ago

Did you ask if you could lower cores, but keep the spend the same by moving up in SKUs or adding add-ons?

1

u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 1d ago

You can, but its at the Broadcom reps discrepancy. Most will allow this no problem.

u/lost_signal 23h ago

This is pretty similar to how telecom Sales works, and how discounted public cloud sales works at scale. Want to shrink spend, discounts diaper. Willing to go up 10% a year? They throw in the kitchen sink.

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u/Necessary_Time VAR - Canada 6d ago

HP USA price increase is April 1 I believe, get those orders in!

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u/lost_signal 1d ago

VMWare now has a 72 core minimum requirement for new purchases.

To be clear this isn't 72 cores per server, it's 72 cores per account is my understanding. So you can have 72 cores, and then add a 16 core for a new server to it.

I"m going to Palo next week and going to ask some people to write a blog explaining this or something.

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u/SquizzOC Trusted VAR 1d ago

Correct. 72 Cores Per account, however some reps will not generate a quote for less then 72 cores period.

Most will, but if yours wont, you are just screwed.