Multinational Financial Services Organisation

Introduction

The client was a multinational financial services company, and member of the FTSE 250 Index, based in London.

The client had exited a VMware Enterprise License Agreement in October 2024 and chosen to take 3rd party support on its perpetual VMware licenses, rather than renew into Broadcom subscription bundles.  Broadcom decided to audit the company’s usage of VMware software because it not reported its license consumption within the contracted period at the end of the ELA.

Their Challenges

The client had several challenges to overcome for this audit:

• It came at a time when the company was pivoting away from VMware virtualisation and was attempting to retire the platform.
• There was limited central discovery available with regards to software deployment, which led to gaps being identified in their data coverage.

Their internal team was involved in a very busy technology transformation program with little time to spare on

Their Objectives

The client’s objectives were:

• A clear audit strategy to support them in their interactions with the audit team
• To understand their VMware license position and ensure compliance
• To ensure any license risks were remediated before data was submitted to the auditor

bedigital’s Solution

We followed our standard audit defence process for VMware, which involves five key stages:

• Initial advice to the client on how to engage with the auditors and the audit process.
• Contract, entitlement and deployment data analysis.
• Risk identification and mitigation.
• Data testing and audit ELP feedback.
• Negotiation with the vendor.

How bedigital Delivered

The early part of the engagement was focused on understanding where in the audit lifecycle the client was currently sitting and advising them on their engagement with the audit team.  This included delaying tactics, ghost writing email communications, guidance on what to say in meetings, and establishing the scope and timeline for the audit.

In the meantime, we asked the client to gather data, including their ELA contract, license entitlement and deployment data through RV Tools and the auditor’s preferred collection scripts (vCollector / vScout).  Once collected, we analysed the data and produced the first draft of an effective license position (ELP), and presented it back to the client, so they were able to understand their current usage and any risks that had been identified.  We recommended some minor changes in the estate and data sets to ensure that the client was risk-free at the point the data would be submitted to the audit team.

Once the data was submitted, we gave the client’s teams support with fielding questions from the auditor about the data and a process by which the auditor would test the data to ensure accuracy and completeness.  We also provided feedback on the auditor’s own ELP, wherever we disagreed with its findings.  When the ELP process was completed, we supported the client with closedown negotiations, including a stipulation that Broadcom would not seek to audit the client any further, as they were migrating away from the VMware platform.

Challenges Overcome

There were several challenges to overcome with the data gathered by the client in order to deliver a successful outcome:

• The audit was taking place at a time of rapid change in the VMware estate for the client, as they were in the process of decommissioning parts of it and migrating the rest to an alternative virtualisation platform. We had regular weekly meetings with the client and were able to stay fully abreast of changes in the estate, how that would impact the data and license usage, and advise the client on their communication with Broadcom.
• The scripts used by the Broadcom audit team did not initially deliver the expected data and left some gaps. By working closely with the client’s technical stakeholders, we were able to resolve these issues and deliver a clean data set to the auditor.

Outcomes

• The client was certain of their compliance with licenses, thanks to the work bedigital did to give them that confidence.
• The audit was completed with zero obligations to the client.

Benefits

• The client was able to continue with their planned strategic migration, secure in the knowledge that Broadcom would not return to audit.
• The audit identified some gaps in the client’s data coverage with regards to software license usage, which were closed as a result.

Testimonial

“We are delighted with the service we have received from bedigital.  Professional, calm and confident at all stages of the audit, we would not have been able to successfully navigate this process without their support.” – The client’s Global Head of Technology Business Management

Conclusion

As with all software vendor audits, there are time pressures and challenges to overcome.  We created a plan at the beginning of the audit and stuck to it to ensure the client had no obligations to Broadcom and achieved their core outcome, which was to be in a position to move away from the VMware technology.