In today’s fast-paced world, it’s difficult for enterprises to always stay on top of evolving tech solutions. Virtualization being the core to IT operations, changes in terms of virtualization technology aren’t one of the shifts enterprises can overlook.
Organizations are reassessing VMware in light of Broadcom’s post‑acquisition changes (portfolio simplification, subscription‑only licensing, and new core minimums), which have made renewals more complex and, for many, significantly more expensive.
Independent reporting highlights steep price increases and the shift away from perpetual licensing, while a partner memo confirmed a jump to a 72‑core minimum purchase with penalties for late renewals.
These moves are driving active evaluations of VMware alternatives and staged pilots. Whether planning a VMware migration and choosing a more efficient VMware alternative or trying out a new VMware alternative, enterprises must depend on a well-planned roadmap. If you are in search of a roadmap, you are at the right place. Go through this article for a detailed migration roadmap.
Table of Contents
- HCI 101: What You’re Transitioning To
- Choosing Your Target Platform: Open‑Source vs. Commercial
- End‑to‑End Migration Method: From Discovery to Cutover
- Data & Downtime: Minimizing Risk
- Operational Readiness: Networking, Storage, Backup/DR, and Skills
- Cost & Licensing: Model TCO Beyond the Hypervisor
- A Practical 90‑Day Action Plan
- Measuring Success Post‑HCI
HCI 101: What You’re Transitioning To
Hyper‑converged infrastructure (HCI) virtualizes compute, storage, and networking into a software‑defined stack running on commodity x86 servers, managed from a single control plane.
Also Read
The appeal is cloud‑like agility on‑prem, linear scalability, simplified operations, and resilience at the edge. Organizations using traditional virtualization through VMware would prefer transitioning to more cost-effective and easy-to-operate HCI in the wake of the Broadcom acquisition.
The benefits are simple yet much coveted in today’s time:
- The maximum use of existing hardware components helps extract the desired ROI.
- A single-platform view provides ease of management, thereby giving IT teams peace of mind as far as operations are concerned.
- Scalability becomes easier as you can simply add nodes to expand the system.
- HCI reduces CAPEX and OPEX, contributing to ROI in the process.
- Software-defined storage and advanced networking improve application performance.
These are exactly the profiles IT teams seek when re‑platforming.
Choosing Your Target Platform: Open‑Source vs. Commercial
Open‑source substitutes (e.g., Proxmox VE) offer cost control and transparency, with active communities, integrated backup options, and SDN features; plan for team upskilling and integrations across backup/DR and observability.
Commercial rivals include Nutanix AHV, which pairs an enterprise hypervisor with distributed storage and Prism management, and Microsoft Azure Stack HCI, which ties deeply into Azure services, Windows Admin Center, and Azure Arc for unified governance.
When comparing platforms, weigh hypervisor maturity, storage architecture, SDN capabilities, automation, backup/DR, hybrid‑cloud extensions, and ecosystem tooling.
If your approach to finding a VMware replacement and migration involves choosing commercial solutions, then Sangfor is an ideal choice for VMware replacement. Till now there are 10,000+ customer’s success stories where Sangfor successfully replaced VMware and this number is increasing every quarter.
This is mainly possible because they offer integrated, supported, and feature-rich HCI platform that hardly require any in-house expertise to deploy and manage. On the contrary, open-source alternatives require more in-house expertise but can offer cost savings on licensing.
End‑to‑End Migration Method: From Discovery to Cutover
Here’s how to prepare your migration method from your existing virtualization platform to a new VMware alternative.
1) Assessment & Inventory
Map VMs, apps, and dependencies (networking, storage, backup/DR). Discovery tooling is invaluable at this stage.
2) Target Validation & Pilot
Stand up a pilot cluster; migrate non‑critical workloads; validate performance, security baselines, and operational runbooks.
3) Conversion/replication Strategy
Favor agentless snapshot‑based replication that interacts with vCenter APIs to copy disks in the background while VMs keep running; convert formats as needed (e.g., VMDK to QCOW2/VHDX). Sangfor, Azure Migrate, and similar suites implement initial full sync + continuous increments to keep deltas small until cutover.
4) Phased Cutover with Rollback
Migrate in waves and preserve the ability to fall back if testing fails; schedule critical services last during maintenance windows.
5) Post‑migration Validation & Optimization
Confirm app health, performance, backup status, DR runbooks, and cost baselines after migration; right‑size resources on the new platform.
Data & Downtime: Minimizing Risk
Minimize the migration risk when moving away from VMware to another solution like Sangfor. If you are moving to Sanfor specifically, avoid cold exports (shutting down VMs and using OVA/OVF), as they cause long downtime.
Instead, Sangfor supports agentless replication, which copies disks while VMs stay online. After the initial full sync, Sangfor performs incremental updates so only small changes remain before cutover; as a result, keeping downtime minimal.
If agentless migration isn’t possible for certain workloads, Sangfor offers agent-based file copy or backup-and-restore as fallback options.
Key principle: Start with a full transfer, then use continuous incremental sync to ensure a fast, low-risk cutover.
Operational Readiness: Networking, Storage, Backup/DR, and Skills
Plan IP/VLAN mapping, security policies, storage tiers, and integration with backup/DR. If you’re moving from vCenter/Aria to Windows Admin Center + Azure Arc or Nutanix Prism, expect differences in management paradigms—invest in training to avoid operational gaps and to leverage centralized governance, RBAC, patching, and monitoring.
Cost & Licensing: Model TCO Beyond the Hypervisor
Don’t model cost at the hypervisor alone. Consider subscription terms, core minimums, bundle inclusions, hardware refresh, support tiers, training, and migration services. Since late 2023, VMware has ended perpetual licenses and consolidated SKUs; multiple reports show sharp cost increases for many customers, with recent changes (e.g., 72‑core minimums and late‑renewal penalties) adding volatility. Build a 3–5‑year ROI with sensitivity analysis.
A Practical 90‑Day Action Plan
Days 1–15: Discovery & business case. Inventory workloads and dependencies, shortlist VMware alternatives, and define success metrics: downtime minimization, performance, security, and cost.
Days 16–45: Pilot & rehearsal. Stand up target HCI; pilot representative workloads; test replication, cutover, rollback, and DR restores.
Days 46–75: Phased production migrations. Move low‑risk tiers first; validate monitoring and backups; document operational runbooks.
Days 76–90: Optimization & sign‑off. Right‑size, finalize security/BCDR, complete ROI/TCO review; decommission or repurpose legacy capacity.
Measuring Success Post‑HCI
A successful HCI transition is the result of a well-planned migration. When the migrations are planned with simpler operations, predictable scaling, and improved resilience in consideration, it is bound to be disciplined and align with your organization’s needs.
Consider the guided steps in this post to smoothly transition from VMware to a new HCI platform of your choice. Additionally, track post‑migration metrics (latency/IOPS, VM density, backup RPO/RTO, failover times, patch/update cadence, and cost) to confirm benefits. Whether you choose open‑source substitutes or commercial rivals, the right VMware migration plan can reduce complexity and optimize long‑term TCO without sacrificing performance or continuity
