Contents
- VMware VDDK Explained: Why Broadcom's 2026 Pullback Breaks Migration Tools
- What is VDDK, in plain terms?
- What exactly did Broadcom do, and when?
- Why does this matter — what actually used VDDK?
- Who gets hit hardest by this?
- What are the workarounds right now?
- Does this fit a pattern since the Broadcom-VMware deal?
- What's still unconfirmed?
- FAQ
What we checked ourselves
The figures below were not taken from other articles. We checked them ourselves on 2026-09-14 00:17 KST.
Broadcom’s official SDK catalogue (developer.broadcom.com/sdks) currently lists 44 SDKs, but VDDK (Virtual Disk Development Kit) is not among them, and known VDDK URLs return HTTP 404 — neighbouring SDKs such as the vCenter Converter SDK and vSphere Management SDK return 200 as normal.
Method: fetched https://developer.broadcom.com/sdks (the full catalogue page) directly with curl -s -D – -A 'Mozilla/5.0 …', extracted the 44 '/sdks/*/latest/' links, then ran a case-insensitive grep for 'vddk', 'virtual disk development' and 'vix disklib' across the whole page body — zero matches. Then called three URLs mentioned in VDDK’s public documentation (latest, 8.0.3, 9.0.0), plus, as a control, three SDKs actually listed in the catalogue (vsphere-management-sdk, vcenter-converter-sdk, pyvmomi), each via curl -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}', and compared the response codes.
| URL | HTTP | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| /sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/latest | 404 | title: "error" |
| /sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/8.0.3 | 404 | |
| /sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/9.0.0 | 404 | |
| /sdks (catalogue) | 200 | 44 SDK links, no VDDK |
| /sdks/vsphere-management-sdk/latest/ (control) | 200 | |
| /sdks/vcenter-converter-sdk/latest/ (control) | 200 | |
| /sdks/pyvmomi/latest/ (control) | 200 |
Caveat: because curl makes a static request without executing JS, we cannot rule out the possibility that this Liferay-based site shows a different catalogue depending on login session (the figures above are for the logged-out state). A 404 also does not distinguish between 'removed entirely' and 'moved behind a login-only route' — according to community reports, customers logged in with a valid vSphere enterprise account can reportedly still download it via the support portal path, which is outside the scope of this check.
VMware VDDK Explained: Why Broadcom’s 2026 Pullback Breaks Migration Tools
VDDK is the Virtual Disk Development Kit — a toolkit that lets software read and write VMware virtual disk files directly, without going through the guest OS or the hypervisor’s management layer. Around August 25, 2026, Broadcom quietly blocked public access to the VDDK download pages, with no advance notice. That single move breaks or slows down a long list of migration and backup tools that assumed the SDK would always be there.
Below is what changed, who gets hurt, and what options are actually left. If you run VMware in production and haven’t touched your migration or backup tooling lately, this is worth five minutes before you assume everything still works the way it did last month.
What is VDDK, in plain terms?
It’s the SDK that lets outside tools touch VMware disk files directly, instead of asking the hypervisor to do it for them.
Two capabilities make VDDK valuable: block-level disk access and Changed Block Tracking, or CBT. Block-level access means a backup or migration tool can read a VM’s disk in chunks without booting the guest OS. CBT means the tool only has to copy the blocks that changed since the last pass, not the whole disk every time.
Take those two things away, and a tool still has options — but slower ones. Full OVF exports move the entire VM, every time, whether or not much has changed. For a nightly backup job on a large VM, that’s the difference between copying a few changed gigabytes and copying the whole disk from scratch. Multiply that across a datacenter’s worth of VMs and the backup window stops fitting overnight.
What exactly did Broadcom do, and when?
Sometime around August 25, 2026, the public VDDK download pages on developer.broadcom.com stopped resolving. ShapeBlue was first to document the problem that day. The story didn’t get wide coverage until Virtualization Howto reported on it September 7 — 13 days after ShapeBlue first flagged it.
There was no press release. No blog post from Broadcom. No changelog entry.
Every version-specific download page returned a 404, according to ShapeBlue’s checks — the SDK pages, the “latest” page, and TechDocs’ installing-the-vddk-package.html among them. Whether the policy differs by VDDK version (8.x versus 9.x, for instance) isn’t clear from what’s public; the sources only confirm the pages themselves are gone.
The only confirmation customers got came from support tickets. Several outlets, including Platform9 and Micronauts, report that Broadcom support told customers VDDK is no longer available for download or use, framing it as necessary to maintain security, stability, and product quality. That’s a secondhand paraphrase of a support reply, not a public statement or a verified quote, so treat the exact wording as unconfirmed.
Why does this matter — what actually used VDDK?
VDDK sits underneath a surprising number of tools that VMware admins use without thinking about it. Migration and backup software built around it depended on those two things — block access and CBT — to move or copy VMs efficiently.
| Tool / vendor | What it used VDDK for |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Azure Migrate | Agentless VM migration into Azure |
| Red Hat Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV) | VMware-to-KVM virtualization migration |
| Nutanix Move | Cross-hypervisor VM migration |
| virtv2v / nbdkit | Open-source VM conversion utilities |
| VMware backup and DR tools | Block-level, incremental (CBT-based) backups |
CloudStack’s “optimized direct VMware-to-KVM” conversion path also needed VDDK, according to ShapeBlue — and that path is now blocked. An OVF-export fallback still works, just not as the direct path was designed to.
Notice what these tools have in common. None of them are niche. Azure Migrate and Red Hat’s MTV are the standard on-ramps enterprises use to leave VMware altogether — a strange thing to break without warning if you’re the vendor whose customers are already looking for the exit.
Who gets hit hardest by this?
Not everyone feels this the same way. It depends on what you already have on hand.
| Situation | Impact |
|---|---|
| Already have a local VDDK copy cached | Migrations and backups keep running for now |
| Need a new VDDK download today | Blocked — pages return 404 |
| Small vendor, no Broadcom partnership | No official channel to request access |
| Open-source project bundling/redistributing VDDK | CI and build pipelines can break |
| Mid-migration project needing a newer VDDK version | Stuck if the new version isn’t already downloaded |
Micronauts singles out smaller vendors without a formal Broadcom partnership, open-source tooling that can’t legally redistribute VDDK, IT teams that never thought to grab a local copy, and anyone mid-migration who suddenly needs a version they don’t have. If your organization already keeps a cached copy, ShapeBlue notes you’re not immediately affected — the problem shows up the moment you need something new.
That’s the part I’d flag first if I were running an IT team right now: this isn’t a today problem for most people. It’s a problem the next time you scale a hypervisor, patch a migration tool, or onboard a project that needs a version you don’t already have sitting on a drive somewhere.
What are the workarounds right now?
There’s no single fix, but there are paths that don’t need a fresh VDDK download.
Platform9 lays out three ways to move a VM off VMware:
- VDDK + NBD — the traditional method. Still needs VDDK, so it only works if you already have a cached copy.
- Storage Assisted migration — moves data through the iSCSI/FC storage layer directly. No VDDK required.
- Accelerated Copy — routes through a proxy VM, works across storage array types, and also skips VDDK entirely.
ShapeBlue’s guidance for CloudStack users runs along similar lines: preserve any VDDK copies you already have and record checksums to keep them intact, switch to OVF export where direct conversion isn’t available, and — if you use ShapeBlue Migrate — pick one of its four conversion methods that doesn’t require VDDK.
Micronauts adds a few more general options: export the full VM as an OVF/OVA package, move data through your storage vendor’s own tools, or request access through Broadcom as a “verified customer” or technical partner. Virtualization Howto notes that partners in Broadcom’s Technology Alliance Partner (TAP) program may still have access. Securityonline points organizations needing fresh access toward Broadcom’s official support team or “authorized technical support providers.”
One thing all five sources agree on: Broadcom hasn’t published an official replacement download path. Whatever you use instead, you’re piecing it together yourself right now.
None of these workarounds are equivalent to what VDDK offered. Storage-assisted and accelerated-copy methods avoid VDDK, but they ask you to redesign a migration process that, for a lot of teams, has run the same way for years. That’s real work, not a checkbox.
Does this fit a pattern since the Broadcom-VMware deal?
Coverage frames this as one more move in a string of changes since Broadcom’s VMware acquisition — though the sources for this piece deliberately don’t wade into the broader licensing and pricing fights that have dominated that story elsewhere. That’s a separate topic.
What is relevant here: ShapeBlue says users have sporadically reported VDDK accessibility issues going back to February 2024, through November 2025. This isn’t the first friction point around VDDK access — it’s the first time the pages disappeared outright.
I’d be careful reading too much intent into the timing. A quiet removal with no explanation looks a lot like a policy change that wasn’t ready to be announced, or one nobody thought needed announcing. Either way, the effect on admins is the same regardless of which it is.
What’s still unconfirmed?
A few things worth being upfront about. Whether Broadcom plans to say anything official about this is unknown — nothing has surfaced as of this writing. Whether VDDK is being discontinued outright, or shifted to a paid or partner-only model, hasn’t been confirmed either; every source describes the same thing, an unexplained removal with only verbal replies from support, and none of them nail down which of those two outcomes it is. One report mentions Red Hat publishing a separate support document around August 27, but that hasn’t been independently verified here, so treat it as a lead rather than a fact.
FAQ
Does this affect VMs that are already backed up or migrated? No — this affects new downloads and new access, not backups or migrations that already completed. If your backup software has a cached VDDK copy, it can likely keep running as-is; the risk shows up when that tool needs an update or a different version.
Can I still get VDDK through Broadcom directly? Possibly, through official support or as a Technology Alliance Partner, but there’s no confirmed self-service path. Several sources point to contacting Broadcom support or an authorized technical partner, though none describe a guaranteed outcome.
Is Broadcom shutting VDDK down for good? That’s not confirmed. All five sources describe an unexplained removal with no official statement — not a stated end-of-life. It could turn into a partner-only or paid model instead; nobody has confirmed which.
Nothing here rules out VDDK coming back as a partner-only or paid product next. Hold off on locking in a migration plan around these workarounds until Broadcom says something on the record.
Image credits
- VMware-CarbonBlack logo-1024×569 by VM WARe inc;, licensed under CC0 (via Openverse)
- Broadcom BCM2050KMLG (49724268213) by <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.fl, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Openverse)
- Azure by Unknown author<span style=”display: none;”>Unknown author</s, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Openverse)