Why organisations are reconsidering VMware
Since Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware in 2023, licensing has moved from perpetual terms to subscription bundles, and many organisations have seen costs and contract structures change as a result. This has pushed data sovereignty, licensing flexibility and platform independence higher up the infrastructure agenda, and it has accelerated interest in multi-cloud and hybrid approaches rather than a single-vendor virtualisation stack.
Migrating away from VMware is rarely a like-for-like swap. There are many VMware alternatives on the market, including Red Hat OpenShift, Nutanix, and Proxmox, all of which offer their own specific benefits. The best hypervisor for your organisation depends on workload architecture, team capability, budget and compliance obligations, so it is worth treating as an infrastructure decision rather than a straightforward platform switch.
Choosing the right VMware alternative
If you make the decision to migrate away from VMware, there are several factors to consider. Choosing the right hypervisor is important, but finding the right provider can be just as critical to getting the best from your platform. Some providers offer a choice of VMware alternatives depending on the environment you are migrating from and your requirements, while others favour a specific software partner. Here are some of the key elements to consider when choosing a VMware alternative and a hosting partner.
Workload and architectural fit
Before selecting a target platform, it helps to tier workloads by complexity and risk, separating general-purpose applications from systems with deep VMware-specific dependencies such as NSX network rules, ERP integrations or backup hooks. Workloads with those dependencies tend to need a more structured migration than a straightforward lift and shift, and the destination platform often varies by workload rather than following a single, estate-wide choice. Some workloads suit an on-premise platform such as Nutanix, while others are better served by a more direct hypervisor swap, such as Proxmox. For mixed estates, OpenShift can support containers and virtual machines (VMs) within the same environment.
Team skills and operational readiness
Running a new platform well depends on whether the in-house team already has the relevant skills, or whether that capability needs to be built or brought in. During migration itself, two platforms typically need to be managed in parallel, each with its own tooling, governance and monitoring, which adds operational load beyond the migration project itself. The level of vendor support on offer also varies considerably, from community-driven platforms to fully managed, engineer-backed environments.
Budget and licensing
Headline platform pricing rarely reflects the full cost of migration. Tooling, temporary parallel running, retraining and contingency for downtime all contribute to the cost., The potential savings compared with VMware remain an important part of the business case, but they should be considered alongside the longer-term cost curve, including how pricing changes as the environment grows.
Compliance and data sovereignty
Data sovereignty requirements could rule out certain platforms or providers outright. Some solutions may not provide full transparency about where your data is stored and processed, and may replicate and route data across borders. This creates concerns around compliance, especially for organisations handling sensitive personal data. For regulated sectors such as healthcare, financial services and the public sector, it is important to check a target platform’s certifications before committing, rather than assuming compliance by default.
For more information on the different options available, and how to decide on the right option for you, read our insight ‘VMware Alternatives: Comparing Virtualisation Software’.
What to check before migrating from VMware
Most migration risk comes from details that were not verified in advance rather than genuine unknowns. In order to mitigate any issues that can arise during a migration, there are several key points to check.
Licensing
Confirm the exact expiry date of the current VMware agreement and any notice period on auto-renewal. At expiry, existing VMs keep running, but updates, patches and support stop. Any prepaid credit or committed spend needs to be used or renegotiated before moving platforms.
Backup compatibility
Confirm that the current backup tool supports both the source VMware environment and the destination platform, since backup and replication jobs typically need rebuilding rather than carrying across directly. Validating the source environment before migration reduces the risk of transferring corrupted data.
Rollback planning
Keep the original environment live until the migrated workload is fully validated, with a clearly communicated cutover window so a rollback, if needed, is a planned step rather than an improvised one. Testing the rollback process on non-critical VMs first reduces risk when it matters.
A step-by-step VMware migration process
1. Discovery and assessment
Scan your infrastructure to map virtual machines, storage, networks and application dependencies. There are purpose-built discovery tools available that will handle this process automatically depending on your new platform of choice. For example, OpenShift uses the Migration Toolkit for Virtualisation, RVTools and Nutanix Collector export vSphere data, and Azure Migrate includes an appliance-based discovery tool for workloads bound for Azure.
2. Strategy
Most businesses do not apply a single migration strategy across all workloads. Instead, different approaches are used depending on application complexity, risk, regulatory requirements and the priorities of the business. The 6R’s of Migration can be used to help determine which migration solutions are best suited for your business needs.
3. Cost and team readiness
Factor in the full cost of migration, not just the price of the new platform. This includes migration tools, training, budgeting for possible downtime & disruption, hardware, security, integrations, migration labour, professional services and any parallel-running costs.
4. Backup and safety
It is important to secure a full backup of every virtual machine before migration begins. This gives the option of a roll back in the event that anything goes wrong mid-migration.
5. Pilot migration
It is a good idea to start with non-critical VMs before touching critical production workloads.
6. Replication and transfer
This is the technical heart of the migration. The approach varies depending on the destination platform. The methods fall into one of three categories:
- Live/warm migration – The virtual machine keeps running on the source platform while data is being replicated to the destination in the background, with a short cut off at the end to switch the traffic over. This method reduces downtime but requires more sophisticated tools with a stable connection between sources throughout the process.
- Cold migration – The VM is powered off, data is transferred fully, and is restarted on the new platform. This method is simpler and lower risk from a data-integrity angle, but involves a scheduled downtime for the full duration of the transfer.
- Native import/conversion tools – A lot of platforms provide a built-in wizard that will convert VMware disk formats and configs directly, rather than relying on third party software to complete the migration.
Most businesses use a combination of these methods across their estate, as opposed to one approach for everything. Critical systems that can’t afford any downtime often require live migration despite the added complexity, while less critical workloads are frequently cold migrated to save time and costs. It is also worth noting that migration tools are generally split into two types: movers, which handle the actual data transfer and discovery/orchestration tools, which handle the mapping of dependencies, sequencing, and governance across large-scale migrations.
7. Post-migration validation and cleanup
Before considering a migration complete, check network connectivity, that all services start correctly, and validate that storage is intact and accessible. These steps are often where the real time investment lies due to the importance of checking everything is working as it was.
Cleaning up the system post migration is just as important as the migration itself. There may be drivers or tools left behind from VMware that can cause conflict or unnecessary overhead on the new platform.
Mitigating VMware migration risk
A VMware migration rarely fails because of the technology itself. It tends to fail where dependencies were not properly mapped, where a rollback plan existed on paper but was never tested, or where the true cost of running two environments in parallel was underestimated. Treating discovery and rollback planning with the same weight as platform selection is usually what separates a controlled migration from a disruptive one.
How Hyve can support with managed VMware migration
Migrating from VMware affects every part of your infrastructure at once; licensing deadlines, platform selection, team readiness, budget, compliance, execution risk, and the very real possibility of downtime if something goes wrong.
A managed migration with Hyve takes the pressure off of your team. Our experts consult with you on your needs, assessing existing environments, tiering workloads by complexity and risk, and helping identify the right destination platform for each part of the estate. We then provide you with a bespoke migration plan, with clear upfront costs, and support throughout the process to ensure a seamless transition with minimal disruption.
After migration, ongoing monitoring and optimisation help keep the platform secure and compatible as requirements change, long after the migration is complete.
If you are looking to migrate away from VMware, talk to our team for an initial consultation.
FAQs
How long does a VMware migration take? Timelines depend heavily on estate size and the complexity of dependencies. Smaller environments can typically move within a few months using a phased approach, while larger, more interconnected estates commonly take well over a year. Untangling storage, networking and backup dependencies usually accounts for more of the timeline than the data transfer itself.
Can I migrate without downtime? In many cases, yes. Live migration tools can move a running VM, including its memory and network identity, without interruption. However, not every workload qualifies, and VMs using shared disks, fault tolerance or certain storage configurations may need a brief offline migration instead.
What happens if my VMware support contract expires? Nothing shuts down automatically. Existing VMs continue to run, and perpetual licence holders can keep using the version they own. What changes is access to patches, updates and vendor support going forward.
