VMware Migration: Why 2026 Is the Year to Move

Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware changed the rules. Tripled licensing costs, elimination of perpetual licenses, mandatory bundles that include products nobody asked for. If your infrastructure depends on VMware, you’re probably already feeling it on the invoice.

But cost isn’t the only problem. The real risk is uncertainty: how much will it cost next year? Will they keep supporting your version? What happens if they decide to drop a product you rely on?

The alternatives are production-ready

Five years ago, leaving VMware was a risky proposition. The alternatives weren’t mature, the tooling ecosystem was limited and migration meant rewriting applications. That’s no longer the case.

OpenShift Virtualization

Red Hat OpenShift includes native virtualization capabilities that allow running VMs and containers on the same platform. For enterprises already on the containerization path, this eliminates the need to maintain two separate platforms.

Advantages:

• A single platform for VMs and containers
• Native CI/CD and GitOps integration
• Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV) automates migration from vSphere
• Enterprise support from Red Hat

Ideal for: Enterprises already using OpenShift or planning to adopt Kubernetes.

OpenStack

For organizations that need a private cloud with full control over hardware and networking, OpenStack remains the most mature option. Modern distributions have greatly simplified deployment and operations.

Advantages:

• Full control over infrastructure and networking
• No per-hypervisor licensing costs
• Telco-grade architectures proven in production
• Ceph integration for distributed storage

Ideal for: Telcos, ISPs and enterprises with strict data sovereignty requirements.

Public Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP)

For workloads that don’t require specific physical location, public cloud offers the path of least friction. Tools like AWS Application Migration Service or Azure Migrate automate much of the process.

Advantages:

• Lower upfront infrastructure investment
• On-demand scalability
• Mature managed services ecosystem
• Pay-as-you-go eliminates over-provisioning

Ideal for: Enterprises looking to reduce hardware investment and operations overhead.

The assessment comes first

Not everything migrates the same way. Before moving a single VM, you need to classify your workloads:

1. Lift-and-shift: VMs that can move as-is. Minimal intervention, maximum risk of carrying technical debt forward.
2. Re-platform: VMs that benefit from adapting their format to the destination (from VM to container, for example).
3. Re-architect: Applications that need redesign to leverage the new platform.
4. Retire: Workloads that shouldn’t exist anymore. Every migration is a cleanup opportunity.

Zero-downtime migration patterns

Migration doesn’t have to mean downtime. These are the patterns we use in production:

Active-active replication

The workload runs simultaneously in both environments. Traffic is gradually redirected to the new destination. If something fails, rollback is immediate.

Wave-based migration

Instead of moving everything at once, workloads are grouped by dependencies and criticality. Each wave is fully validated before proceeding to the next.

Scheduled cutover with automated validation

For workloads that don’t support dual execution, cutover is scheduled during low-traffic windows with automated post-migration validation: performance, data integrity and SLAs.

Lessons from real projects

We’ve migrated VMware environments handling over 2 million daily transactions with zero seconds of downtime. These are the lessons they left us:

• Document dependencies before touching anything. Half of migration problems come from dependencies nobody knew existed.
• Automate post-migration validation. Don’t rely on manual validation — something always gets missed.
• Have a tested rollback plan. Not one written in a document. One you’ve actually executed in a test environment.
• Involve application owners. Infrastructure can move the VM, but only the application team knows if everything is working correctly.

Where to start?

If you’re evaluating leaving VMware, the first step is an honest assessment of your environment. Not a theoretical exercise — a real inventory of VMs, dependencies, current costs and destination options.

Schedule a free consultation with our team. In 30 minutes we’ll review your situation and give you a realistic migration plan.