Aransas County on Tuesday authorized a five‑year procurement to replace its Broadcom/VMware server infrastructure with a Nutanix turnkey solution, citing concerns about escalating renewal costs and limited component availability.

County IT staff said the decision avoids repeatedly renewing an expensive Broadcom contract, and that vendor pricing and hardware availability are time‑sensitive. Staff estimated the county pays roughly $150,000 for recent short‑term Broadcom renewals and said the Nutanix purchase would lock pricing and provide five years of support and functionality, with some vendor claims of improved stability and features for emerging AI workloads.

Commissioner [name in transcript] pressed staff on cost and procurement process, asking whether cooperative purchasing precluded a full competitive bid and whether alternatives had been evaluated. Staff and another commissioner said the county had tested Proxmox, Azure and other options in limited deployments and that the cooperative contract includes prior solicitation work; staff also noted a vendor quote with a deadline in early January.

The motion passed on a recorded vote with a 4–1 split. The dissenting commissioner said independent options could be 50–80% cheaper for mid‑size government workloads and urged the court to postpone to evaluate alternatives.

With the procurement approved, staff said implementation could begin in late January or early February and that the county expects some long‑term savings compared with repeated short renewals, while acknowledging the proposal reflected a strategic choice about supply‑chain risk and support features.