Executive Summary
Exits are easier to announce than to finish, and vendors know it. The libraries that read one platform’s disk format are a choke point nobody maps until the week before cutover. Broadcom just closed one of those doors.
Around August 25 the public download pages for the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit disappeared without notice, and Broadcom confirmed the change on September 10. The kit now reaches customers only through selected Technology Alliance Partner members, and only for licensed backup and recovery products. Migration vendors used the same code path for a different job. Nutanix Move asks administrators to upload it, and Red Hat documents it for virt-v2v. An OVF export and qemu-img conversion still works, but it needs staging storage, roughly doubles disk traffic, and stretches the outage window. Watch projects already in flight. Their instructions now point at a page that returns an error.
Broadcom has removed public downloads of the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit, and the companies that move workloads off VMware are the ones paying for it.
The kit, known as VDDK, is a set of libraries that reads data straight from VMware virtual disks. The public download pages disappeared around August 25 with no notice. Broadcom confirmed the change on September 10 and said the kit now reaches customers only through selected Technology Alliance Partner members, and only for licensed backup and recovery products.
That framing is the argument. Broadcom says VDDK is not part of a customer’s software entitlement. It is a separate SDK under its own developer license, and Broadcom software purchases do not include it. In a note to customers, the company said the move protects “the highest standard of security, reliability, and product features.”
Migration vendors used the same code path for a different job. Nutanix Move asks administrators to upload VDDK before it can migrate machines from ESXi. Red Hat documents VDDK transport for virt-v2v through its Migration Toolkit for Virtualization. Apache CloudStack supports a VDDK-based path from VMware to KVM.
The lock lands hardest on migrations already in flight
ShapeBlue and Platform9 were first to flag the removal. Platform9’s marketing vice president, Nicole Silva, called it the latest Broadcom “hit” on VMware users and pointed to renewals she says carry 300% to 1,500% increases.
Projects that started before the change are the problem. CloudStack’s own docs tell users to grab VDDK outside the project, and Nutanix Move expects the administrator to supply the library. Those instructions now point at a download page that returns an error.
The workaround exists, but it costs time and storage
Teams can export a virtual machine to OVF and VMDK files, then convert with qemu-img or virt-v2v. That route still works. It also needs staging storage, roughly doubles disk traffic, and stretches the outage window.
This is a licensing boundary, not a technical one. The code that moves data off VMware is the same code that backs it up. Broadcom now controls who hands it out.
Anyone with a VMware exit on the calendar should inventory VDDK use today. Find the version, the source ESXi releases, and the tool that needs it. Then test a fallback export path before the first production cutover.
The economics behind this migration wave, including the three year cost model and why exits run long, are in the 2026 State of Enterprise Infrastructure report.
Related reading. The VMware Exit Has a Shortlist. Nutanix Just Took a Front Seat.. The Cloud-Native Landscape in 2026, and the Three Decisions Still Open. A Full VMware Exit Costs More Than Three Years of Broadcom’s Bill. The 2026 State of Enterprise Infrastructure.
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