vSphere Data Protection End-of-Life (VDP EOL) & Goodbye 3rd Party Switches

Well, needing massive changes, VMware's vSphere Data Protection Appliance, even with the addition of the features from VDP Advanced, has proven no match for the plethora of backup Solutions currently on the market.

As a result they have announced the following:

vSphere Data Protection: End of Life

VMware is discontinuing VMware vSphere Data Protection (VDP), a general purpose backup product included with vSphere. VMware vSphere 6.5 is the last release which includes the VDP product.

All existing VDP installations with active Support and Subscription (SnS) will continue to be supported until their End of General Support (EOGS) date. Learn more.

Additionally, they have made this announcement about 3rd Party vSwitches:

Notify Customers: Update on vSphere 3rd Party vSwitch Support

VMware is discontinuing the third party virtual switch (vSwitch) program.
VMware will continue to support the 3rd party virtual switch APIs, and the enablement of a partner's use of these APIs up to the vSphere 6.5 Update 1 and prior vSphere versions, as long as an active support and subscription services contract exists.

All vSphere releases and vSphere 6.5 Update 1 will no longer have third party vSwitch APIs and third party vSwitches will no longer work. View these FAQs to learn more and encourage your customers to migrate to vSphere Distributed Switch using our free tool.