Veeam confirming vSphere 9.0 and ESXi 9 upcoming support

This info is not new, but I just thought that I'd share as I think that many of you, in case you haven't updated your Veeam Backup server in the past couple of months to the latest v12.3.1.1139, you left this unnoticed (like I did). In fact, Veeam's latest release v.12.3.1.1139 has a mention on vSphere 9.0 support and it states that:

VMware vSphere 9.0 readiness based on the pre-release builds. The official support will be confirmed with a full regression testing of the GA build when it becomes available. This article and KB2443 will be updated with a support statement following that.

It basically means that once the ESXi 9.0 is ready and in General Availability (GA) state, Veeam will do their battery of tests and then announce an update/support. Believe it or not, VMware ESXi is probably here for a bit longer than most expects after the price hikes, licensing changes and phasing out SMB bundles. Many clients will stay on ESXi and vSphere for a bit longer until their support expire (or maybe, if they decide to renew with VMware) or/and until they migrate to XCP-NG or Proxmox, or other hypervisor's platforms. Not easy to migrate from something you have perhaps used for the past 10 years, right? But hey, the time changes and many alternative platforms are getting better and better with every release. This get me thinking that they might be good enough for SMB, Service providers and Enterprise.

The latest Veeam's Data platform release, v.12.3.1.1139, adds support for NSX-T 4.2.1, IBM DB2 plugin which now supports DB2 v12.1 and SLES 12 SP5, and also SAP HANA plugin that now supports SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 08 and SLES 15 SP6 for SAP HANA on IBM Power.

Check for other improvements in the release notes here.

Screenshot from the release notes.

You can download the update ISO from that page. There are two versions of the ISO depending if you're on 12.3.0 or on v11 (or v10…).

Two Versions of Veeam's ISOs

Update 12.3 To 12.3.1 – use this if you are on 12.3.0.310 only!

Upgrade To 12.3.1 (from 11a, 12, 12.1 or 12.1) – this is the latest, “slipstreamed” version of the full product. You can use it for clean installations OR upgrades.

Source: Veeam KB 4696

And VMware?

Yes, so you can see that the ESXi 9.0/vSphere 9.0 but also the whole VCF 9.0 are getting slowly ready (currently in BETA). IMHO we won't see the final product before the end of the year, but I could be wrong. One thing to bare in mind, the move to ESXi 9.0 will most likely disappoint some of our readers, as ESXi 9.0 will be removing drivers (End of Live) in the ESXi 9.0 and some devices will be deprecated.

Deprecated devices in ESXi 9.0 and implications for support

There is a new kb recently updated with information about VMware vSphere ESXi 9.0 and its deprecated devices.

Quote:

A number of I/O devices have been marked as “Restricted” in ESXi 9.0 as a result of the devices being EOL'd by the device vendors.

VMware device deprecation policy mandates I/O hardware devices to continue to operate for the duration of a full major release so as to provide enough time for customers to migrate away from these devices. These devices will be removed in the next major release, and hence customers should plan to replace or migrate away from using such hardware.

There are two categories of deprecation – Restricted Devices and End of Life. They are described as follows:

Restricted Devices

ESXi 9.0 driver is present and will claim the device
Device is listed in the ESXi 9.0 Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG) but will be marked with the keyword “Restricted”

A “Restricted” Device is defined as follows:

- No new features
- No driver enhancements
- Best effort to provide fixes and/or workarounds

To ensure that there is hardware or firmware support for the device, please contact your OEM and device vendor representative. Hardware and firmware support is the responsibility of the hardware provider.

End of Life

Either a device, or driver, or both have been removed from the release. Devices associated with the driver will not be claimed and will not be recognized by ESXi. Upgrade from the previous release may fail
Device is not listed in 9.0 Broadcom Compatibility Guide (BCG)
Device is not supported

If you proceed to upgrade to ESXi 9.0 from a host with an EOL device, the following non-recoverable consequences may occur:

You may lose access to storage / datastores
You may lose network access
You may lose previous configuration on the host

Prior to upgrading to ESXi 9.0, you should replace EOL devices. Devices that are under Restricted Support should be replaced at the earliest availability to ensure there is no gap in support in the future.

End of quote:

Just head to KB391170 and at the bottom you can download two XLS sheets where you find all drivers that won't make it to the ESXi 9.0 and also the info about the restricted devices. Note that the EOL hardware won't simply be recognized by ESXi 9.0 so you'll be left with unfunctional server(s) or servers which will operate only partly. It can happens that you'll loose network connectivity or access to storage etc..

Final Words

The future is multi-hypervisor. The days when VMware has dominated the market with its best hypervisor are over. Everything points to the fact that the number of VMware clients will stagnate or decrease over time. This does not mean that Broadcom's revenue stream will decrease! In fact, their revenue has increased a lot.

Based on available data, VMware’s revenue (as part of Broadcom’s Infrastructure Software segment) is estimated to have increased by approximately $1.6 billion over the last six months of 2025 (January to June 2025), from roughly $6.8 billion to $8.4 billion, representing a growth of about 23.5%. Note that the Infrastructure Software segment, which also includes other businesses like CA Technologies and Symantec’s enterprise division.

What does it mean for SMB's? Are you still with VMware? If you can afford the contracts price increase, why not. Life is beautiful. If you short on a budget, know that good enough alternatives such as XCP-NG or Proxmox will do the job too -:).