Apache CloudStack’s VMware to KVM migration path depends on a component that operators have to go and fetch for themselves. The VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit, or VDDK, is the library that lets software read VMware virtual disks from outside the hypervisor, and the CloudStack administration guide names the Broadcom page to download it from. That page now returns an error, and so does every other VDDK URL on the portal. There has been no announcement from Broadcom and no stated route to obtain the library instead.

Here is the URL the guide gives:

You get an error page. “The page you requested couldn’t be found. We might have removed the page during a website redesign.” With or without the trailing slash, same result. Signed, the Broadcom Web Team.

Follow the official instructions for moving a workload off vSphere and onto CloudStack, and that is where they end.

It is not a local fault. Tested from Europe and through exit nodes in the United States, Brazil, Finland and Japan, the result is the same everywhere. And it is not only the landing page. Every VDDK path on the portal now returns that error:

/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk
/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/
/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/latest/
/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/8.0
/sdks/vmware-virtual-disk-development-kit-vddk/9.0

The Programming Guide page that explained how to install the package, installing-the-vddk-package.html, returns 404 on TechDocs too, while still appearing in search results.

VDDK Pages Were Note Removed Overnight

The pattern goes back years, in Broadcom’s own forums.

In February 2024 a user reported that the 8.0.2.1 release notes were published but no download link existed. A Broadcom representative answered and restored it five months later.

In September 2024 several people reported that none of the VDDK download buttons worked. Every click returned a JSON error instead of a file. Nobody from Broadcom replied in the thread. Other users concluded that access had come to depend on licence tier rather than on holding a free developer account, and reported different results in different countries.

In November 2025 an administrator reported publicly that the 8.x download had stopped working altogether, leaving only the 9.x line, which was not compatible with the conversion tooling they were running. The vendor documentation they were following still told them to fetch 8.0.3. Others upvoted the report, having hit the same wall.

Releases from the 6.x line and earlier are simply absent. The threads asking where they went end without an answer, because there is no archive to point at.

VDDK is the library that lets software outside the hypervisor read and write VMware virtual disks. Anything that touches a VMDK without going through the guest depends on it: image-level backup, replication, disaster recovery, and hypervisor migration. If you back up a vSphere VM at image level, something in that chain uses it. If you move a VM off vSphere at any useful speed, something in that chain uses it.

That includes the open-source side. The virt-v2v engine that sits underneath most VMware-to-KVM conversion work supports VDDK as an input transport, and its own documentation calls that method the fastest and most flexible one available. Apache CloudStack’s newest conversion path uses it to stream disk blocks straight into the pipeline instead of exporting an OVF first.

You do not need VDDK to keep running VMware. You need it to leave, and to protect what you are running while you decide.

The Part with No Workaround

Normally a community routes around a problem like this. Someone mirrors the files, someone packages them, and it becomes a footnote.

The VDDK licence does not permit redistribution. No Linux distribution ships it, no container image bundles it, and no backup or migration vendor can put it in their installer. Every affected product’s documentation has to end with the same sentence: download it yourself from the vendor’s portal.

So a single URL is a hard dependency for an entire ecosystem of third-party software, and that URL now returns 404. The licence that created the dependency also blocks the obvious remedy. Mirroring the binaries fixes nothing. It moves the legal exposure onto whoever hosts them.

There is no Broadcom statement withdrawing public access to VDDK, restricting it to selected partners, or explaining the reorganisation. No announcement, no deprecation notice, no retention policy, no archive, and no stated route for a customer or a small vendor to obtain the library.

The silence is the part worth writing about. A vendor is entitled to change how it distributes an SDK. Doing it without a word, while the Apache CloudStack administration guide and other projects’ install instructions still tell people to click a link that no longer resolves, is something else. The cost lands unevenly too. A large backup vendor with a partner relationship has someone to call. A three-person migration consultancy, an open-source project, or a customer converting their own workloads has a forum post and a 404.

1. Get a copy while whatever entitlement you have still works. Record the version, the platform, the file size, the published MD5 and a hash you compute yourself, and keep it with the project artifacts under change control rather than in somebody’s Downloads folder.

2. If a colleague or an old build host still has the tarball, treat it as an asset. Checksums for the 8.0 line are recoverable from cached copies of the portal, so a file you already hold can be verified against what Broadcom published.

3. Pin the version and test the exact combination you will run in production. Version mismatch is already the live failure mode, as the November 2025 reports show.

4. Check that your fallback works without VDDK. In CloudStack that is the ovftool-based OVF export route: slower and hungry for staging storage, but it does not need the VDDK library. Exercise it once on purpose, so it is not theoretical at 2am on cutover night. Note that this route needs ovftool on the KVM hosts, and ovftool is itself a download from the same Broadcom portal whose landing URL behaves the same way, so hold a copy of that binary too.

5. Ask your account team in writing for the availability and archival policy, and what happens to your access once your vSphere entitlement lapses, which is precisely when a migration project needs the library.

ShapeBlue Migrate is our own tool for moving VMware workloads to Apache CloudStack, so read this section as the vendor pitch it is. It is also the place to be precise, because “supports four migration methods” is not the same thing as “unaffected”.

Two of the four read through VDDK today. The direct method hands the library to virt-v2v, and the changed block tracking method reads through nbdkit’s VDDK plugin. In the current release, an estate that cannot obtain the library cannot use either of those two, and that includes the delta-sync path behind the short cutover.

The overlay method creates a qcow2 overlay with the source VMDK as its backing file and converts in place, so no VMware library is involved at any point. It asks for something else instead: the source VMware datastore and the destination CloudStack pool have to sit on the same NFS export, and it needs CloudStack 4.22.1 or newer. The OVF method never reaches the migration worker, because the import is handed to CloudStack’s own importVm call, which brings the ovftool requirement on the KVM hosts along with it.

So the claim worth making is narrower than “pick a transport”. It is that the method is selectable per VM or per wave, and that two of the routes do not need the library at all, so one unobtainable download does not stop a project. Whether those routes fit a particular estate depends on the storage layout and the CloudStack version, which is a conversation to have before the migration rather than during it.

Narrowing that dependency further is active work for our engineering team. We are extending the read paths that do not need the library, so that more estates have a route which does not rely on a Broadcom download page being up, and we would rather describe each step as it ships than pre-announce it here.

Details are in the migration overview and the product brief.

A download page can be taken offline in an afternoon. The dependency it served took twenty years to build, and it is still sitting in every VMDK on every datastore.

FAQ about VDDK

Where can I download Broadcom VDDK?

Broadcom’s former public VDDK download page currently returns an error. Customers with active VMware entitlements should check their Broadcom Support Portal access and contact their Broadcom account or support team for an authorised download route.

Is Broadcom VDDK still available?

Broadcom has not announced that VDDK has been discontinued. However, its previous public download pages are currently unavailable, and no clear alternative route has been publicly documented.

Can VDDK be downloaded from another website?

VDDK should not be downloaded from unofficial mirrors. Its licence restricts redistribution, and unverified copies also create security and supply-chain risks.

Does Apache CloudStack require VDDK?

VDDK is required for CloudStack’s optimised direct VMware-to-KVM conversion method, but CloudStack also supports an OVF-based migration route that does not use VDDK.

Can ShapeBlue Migrate work without VDDK?

Yes. Two of its four migration methods do not require VDDK, although their suitability depends on the CloudStack version, storage architecture and migration requirements.

Disclaimer: Every URL above was checked on 25 August 2026, from Europe and through exit nodes in the United States, Brazil, Finland and Japan. Broken links can be fixed, and that would be welcome. The missing policy statement would still be missing.

Marco Sinhoreli

Marco Sinhoreli is a seasoned Technical Marketing Manager at ShapeBlue, with over 25 years of IT experience. As an Apache CloudStack expert and committer, he specializes in creating and delivering technical marketing content that bridges the gap between technology and business. Marco has consulted major companies on implementing IaaS solutions with CloudStack, focusing on delivering cloud infrastructure that supports both immediate and long-term business needs. When he’s not diving into cloud solutions, Marco loves playing guitar, exploring new places, and staying updated on politics.