Navigating VMware migration: Strategies to slash costs and boost efficiency

It has been widely reported that organisations are currently facing significant skyrocketing price increases due to changes in Broadcom’s VMWare subscription model. Given VMware’s integral role in many infrastructures, it’s crucial to explore various strategies to manage these costs effectively. This blog will look at just some of the strategies organisations can and should consider.

How can organisations use VMware migration strategies to curb rising costs?

Option One: Do nothing and absorb the price increases OR align VMs to product Bundles

For organisations where VMware is deeply embedded in their infrastructure, absorbing the price increases may be a short-term solution. Organisations can license different VMware product bundles based on specific workload requirements. This involves:

• Workload analysis aligning workloads with product features.
• Segregation: Creating separate environments for different workloads, increasing management overheads.

Option Two: Align workloads to another Hypervisor

Some workloads may be compatible with alternative hypervisors like KVM, Red Hat, or Microsoft. This involves several considerations:

• Cost Reduction: Potentially lower costs by using different hypervisors.
• Management Challenges: Managing separate environments and changing administrator skills.
• Repricing Impact: Consider the potential repricing if VMware licenses retained.
• Planning how to migrate VMs

Option Three: Make a platform change

Organisations facing hardware refreshes should consider:

• Re-evaluating cloud migration models with the increased VMware costs in mind.
• Adopting cloud provider hypervisors to eliminate VMware licensing costs.
• Ongoing VMware costs. Need to factor in updated VMware costs in refresh decisions.
• Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI). HCI integrates compute, storage, and hypervisor, reducing compatibility concerns but it does require significant changes.
• Other migration offerings. Consider what HCI providers offer for migrating from VMware.

Uncovering alternatives to VMware: Your path to cost-effective virtualisation

If you decide to migrate from VMware, the first step is identifying suitable alternative platforms. Alternatives can be broadly categorised into three types:

1. Cloud-based VM Hosting: Services like Amazon EC2, Azure Virtual Machines, and Google Compute Engine provide scalable VM hosting on third-party infrastructure. Although this model can simplify management, it may also lead to higher total ownership costs over time.
2. Open Source Virtualisation: Options such as KVM, Xen, and VirtualBox offer cost-effective solutions. However, they typically require more manual management and may only work on Linux-based systems.
3. Proprietary On-Premise Virtualisation: Platforms like Microsoft Hyper-V serve as closed-source alternatives. While comparable to VMware, migrating to Hyper-V may present challenges, such as differing OS support.

Making informed strategy decisions is key

Choosing the right strategy to manage VMware price increases requires a long-term perspective. VMware is a market leader and a dominant player, but understandably rising costs necessitate consideration of alternatives.

Each option involves varying levels of complexity, testing, and potential changes to the infrastructure. Ultimately, the goal is to find the best virtualisation operating model and platform that aligns with the organisation’s needs to future-proof its IT infrastructure.

Mastering VMWare migration

Today, the landscape has evolved significantly, offering various alternatives for deploying VMs. Options range from cloud-based services like Amazon EC2 and Azure Virtual Machines to open-source technologies like KVM and VirtualBox, as well as proprietary platforms such as Microsoft Hyper-V as well as considering a shift to containers.

If you decide to transition away from VMWare, here are key insights to consider for a successful migration.

Selecting the right tools for a successful migration

Many tools are available to migrate from VMware. When selecting the appropriate tools, it is important to consider what constraints there are, such as:

• Who hosts your VMWare environment: Service providers usually restrict access to hypervisors and the storage layer which limits migration tools to those that support agent-based replication (such as Veeam). If the organisation has full access to the VCentre consider hypervisor-based tools (such as Zerto) if the target environment supports it.
• Who hosts the target environment? Some cloud services have specific tools to migrate with.
• Network connectivity:
  • • Bandwidth can be a limiting factor. To seed a target site, consider tools that enable compression or those supporting NAS backup and recovery in the target site for seeding.
    • Investigate if bandwidth can be simply increased or if anew service required.
• Storage capability: Consider the business load, backup and disaster recovery replication, as older storage environments may struggle with the additional replication load. It’s important to assess the available capacity for introducing migration replication. Consider using tools that support replication throttling, with scheduled throttling being an added benefit.
• Failover testing: Tools should enable VMs to start in the target site (preferably while replication continues) to perform Technical and Business Verification Tests.

As a last resort and if conditions are so restrictive that replication isn’t possible, consider tools which can take backup and recovery data to a target site.

Critical steps for migration due diligence

Before proceeding with migration consider the following key factors:

• Network
  • • Will networks be re-architected? This requires an in-depth understanding of application architecture and networking to reset networks, routing, and firewall rules during the migration.
    • Will the VMs require new IP addresses? Will migration be a Big-Bang (all at once migration) or executed in stages by virtual network?
    • Do VMs have interfaces in multiple networks?
    • Thoroughly map out LAN and WAN network requirements.
    • Understand network throughput for both internal and external connections.
• Backup
  • • Will new tooling be required?
    • How will historical backups be transferred so they are recoverable?
• VM currency for the target environment
  • • Are VMs Operating Systems supported in the new environment?
    • Are VM hardware and NIC versions supported?
• Performance
  • • Benchmark current performance for comparison to the target environment. Record transaction or batch process times.
    • Measure peak storage throughput and IOPS.
• Application Architecture
  • • Map out inter-application dependencies.
    • Map applications to their respective VMs.
• DR
  • • What tools are currently in use and what will replace them?

Fundamental migration steps

The migration process will differ based on the specific VMware products in use and the chosen alternative. Below are general steps to follow:

1. Preparation

1.1. Build runbooks for both the test and migration phases.

1.2. Set Up the New Environment: When migrating to a cloud-based service design, build the landing zone. For open-source or proprietary alternatives, you will need to establish the hosting infrastructure.

1.3. Consider how you will construct the environment for testing (e.g. have separate test networks).

1.4. In advance deploy new infrastructure services such as Domain controllers and Active directory services to replicate from the source site.

2. Testing

2.1. Test by migration phase.

2.2. Test a full failover to ensure the environment is sized correctly and performs.

3. Migration

3.1. Back Up VMware VMs (Optional): If a shutdown before failover is not possible ensure you have backups of all VMs and related resources, typically through snapshots. It’s crucial to turn off VMs for optimal backup integrity.

3.2. Transfer VM Images and Data: Move VM data en masse or in phases to your new environment to streamline.

3.3. Create New VMs: Set up new VMs using the converted images and consider automation tools to assist in this process.

3.4. Configure Environment Settings: Match the new environment’s policies to those previously established in VMware.

3.5. Redirect Traffic: Once everything is set up, redirect traffic to the new VMs.

3.6. Migrate legacy backups.

4. Shut Down VMware:

After confirming the new environment functions properly, you can safely shut down VMware resources.

Additional considerations for a successful migration

Before completing the migration, consider rehosting VMware workloads on a public cloud infrastructure (e.g. Azure AVS) as an alternative. Be aware that VMWare in public cloud will not offer you all the control you once had in a privately managed environment.

Utilising migration tools offered by some alternatives can significantly ease the process. However, these tools may not cover all workloads, necessitating some manual intervention.

Finally, if your applications could benefit from modernisation, consider transitioning from VMs to containers. While this process requires reworking application architectures, it opens new deployment options, such as Kubernetes, which can further streamline your infrastructure. By carefully planning your migration away from VMware, you can take advantage of the evolving landscape of virtualisation technologies and better align your infrastructure with business needs.

Conclusion

As organisations grapple with rising VMware costs, now is the perfect time to explore innovative migration strategies that enhance operational efficiency and reduce expenses. By assessing alternative hypervisors, considering cloud migration, or transitioning to next-generation platforms, businesses can tailor their IT infrastructure to better meet current demands while optimising for future growth.

Contact Interactive to help with comprehensive planning and due diligence which will ensure a seamless transition, safeguarding critical workloads and maintaining performance. Embrace the opportunity to future-proof your IT landscape, streamline management, and unlock greater agility by leveraging modern virtualisation technologies today.