Broadcom is raising the stakes when it comes to preventing its VMware customers from moving to another platform. The company has stopped users from downloading its Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).

While this may not look like significant news VDDK is, in fact, a vital part of tools used to migrate away from VMware. For example, it is used by Microsoft Azure Migrate, Red Hat’s Migration Toolkit, Nutanix Move, and VMware-to-KVM migration products — in other words, many of the applications that will assist disgruntled customers from navigating away from VMware. The kit is still available to larger Broadcom software partners, but can no longer be downloaded by anyone for free.

Broadcom made the move, reported by the VirtualizationHowTo website, with little warning, no deprecation announcement, no alternative link, nor any explanation. The original download link for VDDK now leads to a 404 page, as do many of the support pages for it.