For many IT leaders, VMware has been a familiar part of the infrastructure landscape for years. But changes to VMware licensing and packaging are giving organizations a reason to take a fresh look at environments that may have been operating on autopilot.
Broadcom has transitioned major VMware offerings from perpetual licensing to subscription-based products, and current VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus licensing is calculated per core, with a minimum licensing requirement of 16 cores per processor. Those changes can alter the economics of an environment, particularly when organizations reach a renewal, infrastructure refresh or capacity-planning decision.
That creates an understandable question:
What should we move to?
But that may not be the best question to ask first.
A change in VMware economics can be the trigger for a cloud migration strategy. It should not automatically determine the destination.
Don’t Let VMware Changes Determine Your Migration Destination
When the cost or structure of an existing environment changes, there is a natural tendency to begin comparing replacements immediately.
Should we move to a public cloud?
Would another virtualization platform make more sense?
Is private cloud a better fit for some workloads?
Does refreshing the hardware and keeping workloads on-premises still make sense?
Could a hybrid cloud strategy provide the right balance?
Those are all legitimate possibilities. But choosing among them before understanding the workloads can turn an infrastructure review into little more than a technology substitution exercise.
A better cloud migration strategy starts one step earlier:
What does each workload actually require?
Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework recognizes that different workloads can require different migration strategies, including retaining, rehosting, replatforming, refactoring, rebuilding or replacing them.
The implication is important: migration does not have to mean moving every workload to the same destination.
For CIOs reassessing VMware, that distinction matters.
The goal should not simply be to get off something.
The goal should be to determine where each workload makes the most sense next.
Start Your Cloud Migration Strategy With the Environment You Actually Have
Before evaluating VMware migration options, organizations need a clear picture of their current environment.
That sounds obvious, but years of infrastructure growth can create complexity that isn’t always visible at the executive level. Applications accumulate dependencies. Older operating systems remain in production. Capacity may be allocated very differently from the way it is actually consumed. Business-critical applications may share infrastructure with workloads that could potentially be retired or moved elsewhere.
A meaningful assessment should begin with questions such as:
- Which workloads are running today?
- Which applications depend on one another?
- What compute, memory, storage and network resources are they actually consuming?
- Which workloads are predictable and persistent?
- Which experience significant peaks and valleys?
- What availability requirements do they have?
- What are their recovery point and recovery time requirements?
- Where does their data need to reside?
- Which security or compliance requirements affect infrastructure placement?
- Which applications are approaching end of life?
- Which workloads could be retired rather than migrated?
This kind of discovery is not simply an inventory exercise. It is what allows the organization to make a more informed decision about the target environment.
Public-cloud migration guidance from both AWS and Microsoft similarly emphasizes assessment before migration, including understanding applications, infrastructure, dependencies, business requirements and current-state architecture before determining a migration approach.
For a broader framework for making these decisions, see 8 Questions CIOs Should Be Asking About Workload Placement.
Separate the Workload From the Platform
One of the most useful things a VMware review can do is force an organization to separate two things that may have become intertwined over time:
The workload and the infrastructure running it.
An application may have lived in a VMware environment for years, but that does not mean VMware characteristics define what the application actually needs.
Evaluate What the Workload Actually Requires
Ask instead:
What performance does the workload require?
How much latency can it tolerate?
What volume of data moves in and out?
Is its consumption predictable?
What level of infrastructure control does the organization need?
Are dedicated resources necessary?
How much direct control does the organization need over operating systems, networking or security configurations?
Are there geographic requirements for where the data must reside?
How difficult would the application be to migrate?
Once those requirements are understood, the infrastructure conversation becomes much more useful.
A workload might belong in public cloud.
Another might make more sense in a private cloud.
Some may remain on-premises.
Others may fit a combination of environments.
That is the difference between simply replacing VMware and developing a broader cloud migration strategy.
The same principle applies to emerging workloads. In a recent episode of The Insight-Driven CIO Podcast, Mark Sondergaard explores why even calling something an “AI workload” doesn’t tell you what infrastructure it requires.
The decision begins with what the workload actually needs.
Look Beyond the Monthly Infrastructure Price
Cost is often what initiates a VMware migration discussion, but comparing infrastructure based solely on the monthly price of compute can lead to another unpleasant surprise later.
The more useful question is:
What will it cost to operate this workload in the target environment?
That evaluation can include:
- Compute
- Memory
- Storage
- Data transfer and egress
- Networking
- Backup and recovery
- Security
- Monitoring
- Support
- Migration costs
- Internal staffing requirements
- Contract commitments
- Capacity that must be reserved but may not always be used
Different infrastructure models shift those costs around.
A public cloud may provide significant flexibility for one workload while creating unnecessary complexity or variable costs for another. A private cloud may make sense for persistent workloads requiring dedicated resources but offer less value for highly elastic applications. An owned environment may provide control but require another hardware lifecycle.
The right comparison is not platform price versus platform price.
It is the total operating model for the workload.
Don’t Overlook VMware Migration Complexity
Another important part of a VMware migration strategy is understanding what it will actually take to move.
Infrastructure decisions can look attractive on a spreadsheet until application dependencies, data volumes, downtime requirements and migration tooling enter the conversation.
For each workload, organizations should understand:
- How will the application or virtual machine be moved?
- How much data needs to move with it?
- How long will replication take?
- What downtime is acceptable?
- How will the new environment be tested?
- What is the cutover plan?
- What is the rollback plan if something goes wrong?
- Will the move require application changes?
- Who needs to participate in testing and approval?
AWS migration guidance similarly recommends identifying migration tooling, application dependencies, cutover requirements, target architecture and expected operating costs as part of detailed workload assessment.
This is where a theoretically attractive VMware replacement can become a poor practical choice—or where an option initially overlooked may prove to be a better fit.
Make Disaster Recovery Part of the Migration Strategy
A migration event can also create an opportunity to reconsider how resilience is designed.
Instead of viewing disaster recovery as a separate infrastructure project, CIOs can ask whether the new architecture creates an opportunity to establish a second site, change replication methods, improve geographic diversity or revisit recovery objectives.
For some workloads, the migration destination and the disaster recovery destination do not need to be identical.
That can open the door to a broader hybrid cloud strategy in which infrastructure is selected according to the role each environment plays rather than forcing every workload into one platform.
Consider What Happens the Next Time Something Changes
VMware’s changes are also a reminder of a broader infrastructure reality:
Today’s platform decision will not be permanent.
Pricing and licensing models change. Applications evolve. Business, security and operational requirements shift. New technologies emerge.
Organizations acquire companies, enter markets, consolidate facilities and change operating models.
So before completing a migration, CIOs should ask one more question:
How difficult will it be to move again?
That means considering portability, data access, contract terms, migration options, proprietary dependencies and how much of the architecture becomes tied to the target environment.
A good cloud migration strategy should solve today’s problem without unnecessarily limiting tomorrow’s options.
Include Private Cloud in the Infrastructure Evaluation
One consequence of the VMware changes is that some organizations are reassessing a choice that is often framed too narrowly as on-premises versus public cloud.
There is a much larger spectrum of infrastructure models.
Modern private cloud infrastructure can provide dedicated resources without requiring the enterprise to purchase, deploy and manage all of the underlying physical infrastructure. Depending on the solution, private cloud may also support consumption-based infrastructure, multiple geographic locations, APIs, infrastructure as code and integration with existing public-cloud and on-premises environments.
That does not make private cloud the right answer for every VMware workload.
It makes it another option worth evaluating based on workload requirements.
The same is true of public cloud, alternative virtualization technologies, colocation and owned infrastructure.
The point of the assessment is not to arrive at one universal answer.
It is to create a framework for making the right decision workload by workload.
Use VMware Changes as an Opportunity to Reassess
If VMware licensing or costs have prompted your organization to investigate migration, there is value in resisting the urge to jump directly to a replacement.
Use the moment to ask a bigger question:
If we were designing this environment today, based on what these workloads actually require, would we build it the same way?
For some organizations, the answer may still involve VMware.
For others, it may mean public cloud, private cloud, another virtualization platform, owned infrastructure or a combination of several models.
The important part is that the decision comes from the requirements of the business and its workloads—not simply from the technology that happened to trigger the review.
Because the strongest cloud migration strategy is not the one that gets an organization away from its current environment fastest.
It is the one that gives each workload the right place to operate next—and preserves the flexibility to make a different decision when business requirements change again.
Frequently Asked Questions About Cloud Migration Strategy
What should a cloud migration strategy include?
A cloud migration strategy should begin with an assessment of existing workloads, application dependencies, performance requirements, data, security and compliance requirements, recovery objectives and current operating costs. From there, organizations can determine which workloads should be retained, migrated, replatformed, replaced or retired—and which infrastructure environment is appropriate for each.
What should organizations consider before a VMware migration?
Before migrating VMware workloads, organizations should understand what each workload requires, its application and data dependencies, acceptable downtime, recovery requirements, migration method and target operating costs. A VMware migration does not necessarily require moving every workload to the same platform or cloud environment.
Is private cloud an alternative to VMware?
Private cloud can be one option when evaluating the future of workloads currently running in a VMware environment, but it is not automatically the right destination for every workload. Public cloud, private cloud, alternative virtualization platforms, on-premises infrastructure and hybrid approaches should be evaluated according to workload and business requirements.
How does a hybrid cloud strategy fit into cloud migration?
A hybrid cloud strategy allows organizations to place workloads in different environments based on their individual requirements rather than selecting a single destination for everything. During a cloud migration, that can mean retaining some workloads on-premises while moving others to public cloud, private cloud or other infrastructure environments.
Reassessing Your Cloud Migration Strategy?
If VMware changes have prompted your organization to reconsider its infrastructure, EnTelegent Solutions can help you evaluate the requirements before assuming the destination.
From private and public cloud to hybrid infrastructure, connectivity and managed services, we help organizations and their Technology Partners evaluate options based on the workloads, business requirements and operating model involved.
