Only for its own comms apps – whose users can probably do without a full private cloud
Cisco is getting close to releasing its own hypervisor, as an alternative to VMware for users of its calling applications – software like the Unified Communications Manager it suggests as an alternative to PBXs and other telephony hardware.
The networking giant requires those apps to run in VMs and for years supported them running under VMware.
Under Broadcom’s ownership, the virtualization giant is now reluctant to sell its low-end vSphere suites and instead focuses on its Cloud Foundation (VCF) private cloud bundle which is more expensive than past VMware offerings. It’s not hard to imagine that Cisco users who use VMware to virtualize only for calling applications would balk at acquiring VCF.
The networking giant therefore teased the hypervisor last year as a lightweight tool that offers “only the essential virtualization features” and ideal for “organizations seeking a stable, easy-to-manage hypervisor—without the overhead of third-party platforms or cloud dependencies.” At the same time, Cisco added support for its calling applications to run under Nutanix’s AHV hypervisor.
The new hypervisor, NFVIS-for-UC, only supports Cisco’s calling applications.
Cisco already offers a hypervisor called the Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure Software (NFVIS) that it uses to deploy networking-centric workloads on some of its appliances. NFVIS-for-UC is a special edition of NFVIS that Cisco has given a separate product ID, distinct pricing, new licensing, “and a slightly different admin user interface.”
While the product is not yet on sale, Cisco promised it will arrive in Q1 of 2026. And on February 5th, the company published a virtualization guide [PDF] in which it reveals updated versions of its software are ready to run under the new hypervisor.
It therefore seems that before long some VMware customers have an off-ramp and that the virtualization market has another contender, albeit one content to play in a niche.
Product-specific hypervisors aren’t new: Citrix retreated from the general-purpose hypervisor market to focus on support for its own applications.
Independent analyst Michael Warrilow of Virtified told The Register HPE is currently doing similar things by integrating its own hardware and hypervisor. "That's a nostalgic trip back to mid-1990's mid-range servers," he said.
"Cisco's move makes perfect sense," Warrilow added. "Virtual appliances exist everywhere and are a major obstacle in any migration from a general-purpose hypervisor."
He therefore thinks multi-hypervisor management will become critical over the next three to five years.
VMware probably won’t see Cisco’s moves as a threat, because it focuses squarely on customers willing to go all-in on VCF integrated compute, networking, and storage virtualization tools, plus a Kubernetes stack and cloud-native development environment. That strategy is arguably working as Broadcom reports VMware’s revenue has grown, and often points to major VCF wins at customers such as Japan’s Weather Association.
Broadcom has kept VMware’s smaller vSphere bundles on the books, but users whose subscriptions and support contracts expire tell The Register that at renewal time VCF is the only option on the table. One ~100-person organization we recently spoke to told us that they came away from license renewal negotiations convinced VMware did not want it as a customer, so happily migrated to a competitor and banked some savings.
Cisco’s new hypervisor could see that scenario play out more often, leaving customers utterly dependent on the networking giant (and perhaps its burgeoning agentic AI ambitions) but freed from the need to consider VCF. ®