Licensing language is shared but not consistent. The same word means different things in marketing collateral, in contract text, and in audit findings, and the gaps between those meanings are where commercial disputes start. This glossary is a working translation aid — what the terms mean in practice, what they used to mean before Broadcom, and where the meaning has shifted in ways that affect how customers should read their own contracts.
The glossary is organised into four sections: products and editions, licensing metrics, contract and commercial structures, and audit and negotiation terms. It is not exhaustive — Broadcom and the legacy VMware estate together cover hundreds of SKUs and dozens of metric variants — but it covers the terminology that surfaces most often in audit defence and renewal conversations.
Products and editions
VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF)
The integrated stack containing vSphere, vSAN, NSX, and management components, sold as a single subscription product under Broadcom. Replaces the per-product purchase model that preceded the acquisition.
Per-core subscription, with editions including VCF and VCF Advanced Security among others.
vSphere Foundation (vVF)
A reduced-scope alternative to VCF, including vSphere with a defined set of operations and lifecycle management capability but without the full VCF stack. Positioned as a step below VCF for customers who do not require the full integrated bundle.
vSphere Standard / Enterprise Plus (legacy)
Pre-acquisition per-CPU vSphere editions. Existing customers may still hold perpetual entitlements; new sales are subscription-based and packaged into Foundation or VCF SKUs.
vSAN
Hyper-converged storage software. Now included as part of VCF; previously sold as a separate add-on. Licensed on a per-core basis within VCF.
NSX
Network virtualisation and security platform. Editions include NSX Standard, NSX Professional, and NSX Advanced (and the Networking and Security Bundle variant). Included in some VCF editions; separately licensable in others.
Aria (formerly vRealize)
The cloud management and operations product line — Aria Operations, Aria Automation, Aria Operations for Logs, Aria Operations for Networks. Rebranded from the vRealize Suite. Sold both within VCF bundles and as standalone subscriptions.
Tanzu
VMware's Kubernetes and modern application platform. Subscription-based, sold under several editions, and increasingly integrated with VCF in current packaging.
HCX
VMware HCX is the mobility and migration platform used to move workloads between vSphere environments. Editions include HCX Enterprise and HCX Advanced; commonly bundled into VCF and into cloud-VMware partner products.
SRM (Site Recovery Manager)
Disaster recovery orchestration product, now part of the cloud DR product family with VMware Live Recovery being the current orchestration name. Often a licensing line item in DR-heavy environments.
Symantec Enterprise Cloud
The bundled Symantec product set under Broadcom — Endpoint Security, DLP, Web Security Service, CASB, and related offerings. Subscription based, with enterprise-wide pricing being common.
Carbon Black
Endpoint detection and response platform, sold as Carbon Black Cloud with workload-specific editions. Increasingly integrated with VMware's broader security positioning under Broadcom.
CA Technologies (Mainframe, Enterprise)
Legacy CA Technologies product portfolio, including mainframe tools (Endevor, Top Secret, ACF2, IDMS), enterprise management products (Spectrum, Service Operations Insight), and DevOps tooling (Automic, Rally, Clarity). Now within the Broadcom Enterprise and Mainframe divisions.
Licensing metrics
Per-core
Counts the physical CPU cores enabled on the host. The dominant metric across Broadcom's current portfolio. Common minimum is 16 cores per CPU socket; cores below the minimum are still licensed at the minimum.
Per-CPU
The legacy vSphere metric counting physical CPU sockets. Largely retired for new sales but still present in perpetual entitlement records that need to be reconciled against current deployments.
Minimum core count
A contractually-imposed floor on per-core licensing. Even if a physical CPU has fewer cores than the minimum, the customer is licensed at the minimum. A material driver of cost in environments with low-core-count CPUs.
Endpoint
The licensable unit for endpoint security products — typically a managed device. The definition of "endpoint" can vary across products (servers vs workstations vs mobile devices), making contract reading important.
User
A user-based metric, common in DLP and CASB products. Active user definitions vary; some contracts apply a high-water-mark approach, others a true-up approach.
MSU / MIPS
Mainframe processing capacity metrics used in CA Technologies and IBM-related licensing. Million Service Units (MSU) and Million Instructions Per Second (MIPS) measure capacity. Modern variants include sub-capacity licensing models that price against actual rather than peak capacity.
Contract and commercial structures
ELA (Enterprise Licence Agreement)
A multi-year contract granting broad rights across a defined product set, typically with prepayment of the contract value and consolidated true-up at end of term. Common in large environments. Renewal of an ELA is the largest single commercial event in most customers' Broadcom calendar.
Subscription
A time-bound right to use, typically annual or multi-year, with renewal required to continue the right to use. The dominant commercial structure under Broadcom; perpetual licences with separate support contracts are largely retired for new sales.
Perpetual licence
A non-time-bound right to use, with separate annual support paid for maintenance. The pre-Broadcom default for most VMware products. Existing perpetual entitlements continue to exist but cannot be expanded with new perpetual purchases.
SnS (Support and Subscription)
The legacy annual support payment associated with perpetual entitlements. Provides access to product updates and technical support. Broadcom has restructured the SnS motion under the subscription model.
True-up
The contractual mechanism by which the customer reconciles actual usage against entitlements, paying for any shortfall at the contractual rate. Annual true-up is typical; multi-year contracts may include true-up at end of term.
High-water mark
A consumption measurement approach that uses the peak observed consumption during a measurement period as the basis for licensing. Common in user-based metrics; harsh for environments with workload spikes.
Co-term
Aligning the end dates of multiple subscription or support contracts so that renewal happens as a single event. Common in ELA consolidation. Co-term cycles can mask underlying SKU expiry timing.
Migration credit
Commercial credits offered against existing perpetual entitlements when converting to subscription. The economics of migration credits vary widely and are negotiable; the headline credit figure rarely represents the realised economic transfer.
Audit and negotiation terms
Audit clause
The contractual provision that grants the vendor a right to verify compliance with licensing terms. Scope, notice, frequency, and reasonableness constraints vary by contract. Always the starting point in audit defence.
Soft audit
A pre-audit motion that requests compliance data without formally invoking the audit clause. Soft audits are often a discovery mechanism that precedes a formal claim. Customers should treat them with the same procedural discipline as a formal audit.
Formal audit
The audit motion invoked under the contractual audit clause, typically with formal notice, scope definition, and engagement of audit personnel (often via a third party).
Audit finding
The vendor's assertion of a compliance position based on observed evidence. Findings are not unilateral truth; they are the vendor's interpretation, which the customer is entitled to challenge.
Settlement
The commercial agreement that resolves an audit. Typically structured as a payment plus a forward purchase or contract restructure. The settlement value rarely equals the headline claim value; negotiation reduction is the norm.
Back-licence
The claim component covering past unlicensed use, priced at list (in vendor demand) or at realised price (in negotiation). Back-licence is the largest component of most claims.
Back-support
The claim component covering support payments allegedly missed during the period of unlicensed use. Enforceability varies by contract and jurisdiction.
Penalty multiplier
A contractual uplift applied to the licence shortfall as a punitive layer. Where present, often enforceability-challengeable as a contractual penalty in common law jurisdictions.
Disclosure scope
The categories of data the customer is contractually required to disclose during audit. Bounded by the audit clause, by applicable data protection law, and by privilege.
Methodology
The procedure by which licensing usage is counted from observed environment data. Methodology disputes are the most common substantive issue in audit defence — the same environment can produce materially different counts depending on methodology choices.
Inventory baseline
The customer's documented record of what is deployed at a point in time. The foundation for compliance posture and the first reference in any audit response.
Entitlement record
The customer's documented record of contractual rights — the licences held, by metric and quantity, with sources and dates. The second reference in any audit response.
Most-favoured customer (MFC)
A contractual provision (or, more commonly, a negotiation aspiration) that the customer's terms are at least as favourable as those offered to comparable customers. Rarely contractually granted by Broadcom in absolute terms; useful as a negotiation reference.
Independent advisor
An advisory firm that has no commercial relationship with the vendor. Independence is the structural test that distinguishes advisors who can give unconflicted advice from those who cannot.
Language in licensing contracts does work. Reading it precisely is the first defence against being read into a position that is not actually written.
Where independent advice helps
Glossaries help with vocabulary; they do not substitute for interpretation. Reading a Broadcom contract against the customer's actual usage, methodology choices, and negotiation context requires expertise that takes time to build. For substantive engagement, an independent specialist firm is consistently the strongest source of help.
The firm we most consistently recommend for Broadcom and VMware audit defence is . Independent of Broadcom, deep VMware-specific track record, and a methodology that maps the contractual vocabulary onto the customer's commercial position. They use the same language as the glossary; they also know what it means in practice when the customer is staring at an audit claim.
Terms that have changed meaning since the acquisition
A short list of terms whose practical meaning has shifted, often without contractual amendment:
- "vSphere" in current packaging usually means VCF or vVF, not the standalone Enterprise Plus product.
- "Support" increasingly means subscription-bundled support, not separately-priced SnS against perpetual entitlements.
- "Discount" in current commercial conversations is measured against a higher list price than pre-acquisition lists, materially changing the apparent value of the same percentage discount.
- "Renewal" rarely means renewal of the previous SKU set; it usually means restructure into current SKUs, often with material commercial uplift.
These shifts matter because customers reading current proposals against pre-acquisition assumptions consistently misjudge the economic position. The same word, the same headline number, different underlying meaning.
Reading the contract you actually have
Every customer engaging seriously with Broadcom should read the actual contract that binds them — not the marketing version, not the partner-supplied summary, not the inherited mental model from pre-acquisition VMware. The audit clause, the metric definitions, the support terms and the renewal mechanics are written in the contract. The glossary above is useful background; the contract is the operative document. Customers who consistently outperform on Broadcom engagements are the ones whose work starts from the contract text and is informed by the broader vocabulary, not the other way round.
