George Crump

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strategizing a step-by-step VMware exit

Once IT professionals identify a VMware alternative, the next phase is to develop a step-by-step VMware exit strategy. We talk with VMware customers multiple times a day, and they want to take advantage of VergeOS’ performance, ransomware resiliency, and, of course, 70%+ cost savings, but the next question is always, “Where do I start?”

The good news is there are a lot of ways to start your journey to VergeOS:

  • Put new workloads on VergeOS
  • Use VergeOS for remote offices or Edge locations
  • SAN Replacement
  • HCI Replacement

A Methodical Risk-Free VMware Exit

In this article, we will take you through the process of converting from VMware to VergeOS, even if none of the above use cases apply right now. Instead, we will assume your primary motivation is:

  • Lowering VMware costs
  • Extending the life of existing hardware
  • Improving ransomware resiliency

We will also respect that VMware is infrastructure, and unwinding it from your data center is a process. You’ll also notice that each of these steps provides cost savings along the way as you head to the eventual goal of replacing VMware for the ultimate cost reduction.

VMware Exit Step 1 – Use VergeOS for Backup/DR

Creating a step-by-step VMware exit strategy starts with making sure you have good backups. What if you could not just have a backup but also improve your recoverability? VergeOS’ migration capability leverages the VMware backup API and can back up your virtual machines (VM) regularly to a relatively basic VergeOS instance. We use Change Block Tracking (CBT) to keep the VMs up to date while using minimal network bandwidth. Starting with Backup/DR provides a very affordable extra layer of protection for your VMware environment.

a step-by-step VMware exit starts with DR

You don’t have to turn off what you are currently using for data protection and disaster recovery (DR). Still, many customers find this method a more viable recovery mechanism since all the components for a complete recovery are now converged into a few servers. If a server in your VMware cluster or if your storage array fails, you can, within minutes, have the impacted VMs running in the VergeOS instance.

The hardware requirements for this insurance DR are minimal. You need two or three servers and some internal storage for those servers with enough capacity to protect your virtual machines. In most cases, customers, because of VergeOS’ efficiency, can use servers that they already have on hand, further reducing costs. You’ll need a small flash tier for VergeOS, and then you can send backups to either flash or hard disk drives.

Make All-Flash DR Affordable

Ideally, you want your DR target to be as fast as production because that DR target might someday be production! In the era of all-flash, that means a flash-based DR solution, which makes production-class recovery very expensive.

Because VergeOS uses internal server storage and built-in data deduplication, you can now afford to use flash-based drives, even for backup and DR. For example, 15.3TB NVMe SSDs are less than $1,500 off the shelf. Insert a set of these into your servers, and you have hundreds of terabytes of high-performance flash capacity.

Remember VergeOS charges by the physical server; there is no additional charge for the type of drive technology used or capacity required. The advantage is not just faster backups; in the event of a disaster, your VMs can instantiate on the VergeOS instance at better-than-production performance. VergeOS also supports hard disk drives (HDD), so older backups or less critical VMs can be directed there.

Our DR functionality, IOprotect, is built into VergeOS at no additional charge. The advantage of using VergeOS for backup and DR as a first step is that your investment in the software can start paying dividends within days of purchase.

VMware Exit Step 2 – NAS Replacement

a step-by-step VMware exit continues with NAS replacement

Part of a step-by-step VMware exit strategy might be using VergeOS as a Network Attached Storage (NAS) replacement for file services. You can add more capacity to the existing servers you are using in step one, or you can add one or two more. Again, the drives you add can be flash or HDD, depending on the data you will serve through our file services. Once again, everything is deduplicated, so capacity utilization is very efficient. File data is the most susceptible to ransomware, and moving it to VergeOS means that all of this data benefits from our IOfortify solution. Ransomware is an infrastructure problem.

NAS vendors charge a premium for their solutions, and if you primarily use those systems for file services, you are paying too much. Eliminating an existing NAS or at least not paying a premium to add capacity can dramatically reduce expenditures.

VMware Exit Step 3 – Testing

Again, VMware and VergeOS are infrastructure software. You will want to test your workloads to ensure they work perfectly within VergeOS. You should find no issues; in many cases, you’ll see a performance improvement, but testing is an expected requirement.

The good news is that if you follow step one, you are ready to start step three. Go to your backed-up VMs and import the first set of VMs that you want to test. You do not have to import everything at once, so start as small as you are comfortable. All the VMs, including the VMware versions of the VMs you are converting to VergeOS, will continue to be backed up by VergeOS. Within moments, the selected VMs will be available within the VM console; start them up and begin your testing. You can test them for a long time to ensure you’ve covered all the bases.

VMware Exit Step 4 – Conversion

The next step in a step-by-step VMware exit strategy is conversion. Again, you don’t need to convert all the VMs at once. Some customers will convert low-priority workloads first, then wait for a compelling event to convert the rest. Meanwhile, those VMware VMs continue to be protected by VergeOS.

a step-by-step VMware exit makes the final conversion safe and risk-free.

The compelling event may be one of the use cases mentioned earlier. New workloads are an obvious item to initiate on VergeOS instead of VMware. Remote offices and Edge locations are also a great place to start. If there is infrastructure (servers, network switches, internal storage) at the remote location, VergeOS can leverage it. These smaller locations can convert quickly, and customers can enjoy the benefits immediately.

Another compelling event may be a resource issue. You may have workloads that need more processing power, access to GPUs (we virtualize those), or the most common resource shortage, storage capacity. Implementing more resources within VergeOS is always less expensive than building your current infrastructure. We provided a real-world example of this in our blog “Exiting VMware to Eliminate High Storage Costs.”

The Final Step – VMware Elimination

The final and most compelling event is when your VMware license comes up for renewal. With other solutions, this could be a scary all-or-nothing proposition. With VergeOS and following the above steps, you are not throwing a switch and saying a prayer. The migration is completely de-risked, and when you get that jaw-dropping renewal notice from VMware, you probably already have most of your environment running on VergeOS. All that is left to do is cancel the contract and figure out what to do with the extra money you now have in your IT budget.

See It For Yourself

We go through these steps and show a complete VMware migration demonstration in our on-demand webinar to learn more about our risk-free VMware Exit strategy and see a VMware Migration in action.

Or schedule a 25-minute technical whiteboard session, and we will sketch the whole process out for you.

Filed Under: VMwareExit

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Exiting VMware to Eliminate High Storage Costs

Storage, an integral part of a VMware infrastructure, often consumes a hefty chunk of the IT budget, and exiting VMware to eliminate high storage costs may be the best strategy. Exiting VMware can reduce primary storage costs and investments in secondary storage like backup and archive. A VMware alternative can provide better ransomware resiliency and data protection, reducing backup software investments.

Most IT professionals think that high storage costs come from being forced to invest in high-performance dedicated all-flash arrays (AFA). VMware’s vSAN and Nutanix’s hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) products were supposed to lower storage costs by enabling IT to use off-the-shelf storage media while maintaining enterprise-class features, performance, and availability. Both products fell well short of the goal and, in most cases, are as expensive as the legacy three-tier architecture.

Why Does VMware Have High Storage Costs?

So, what should storage realistically cost? A 15.3 TB NVMe SSD is priced at less than $1,500, meaning 300 TB of high-performance storage comes in at about $30,000.

Why, then, is it well over 5X to 10X that amount to add 300TB of flash capacity to a VMware environment? Dedicated arrays have to cover the cost of the components already in the environment (CPU power, networking, memory). HCI hasn’t lived up to expectations, either. These vendors still charge too much for their software, which doesn’t deliver the enterprise-class performance or capabilities that IT demands, so IT must overcompensate with more hardware and additional drives.

Decoding the High Storage Costs

The above mentioned, $30,000 should be the entire cost to add 300TBs of high-performance storage. Most customers have plenty of excess storage bays in their physical hosts, so they should be able to add these twenty drives without additional hardware costs.

If HCI vendors offered common sense licensing, there would be no additional software charge. The problem is that vSAN and Nutanix don’t have common sense licensing; they constantly charge for add-ons. From a technical perspective, they can’t easily handle adding a mixture of different storage device types to existing servers; they can’t deliver the hundreds of thousands of IOPS potential of the storage, and these solutions often lack the enterprise features that customers expect.

The combination of the failure of HCI to cut costs and the subsequent need for a high-end all-flash array (AFA), balloon the VMware storage budget. The cost of dedicated storage is negatively impacted by:

  1. Markup Pricing: Despite some genuine costs involved in their strategy, dedicated storage array vendors charge exorbitantly for their capacity.
  2. Performance Requirements: Their software inefficiencies necessitate powerful processors to maintain the array’s pace with the performance potential of the media they insert into it.
  3. Feature Implementation: Functions such as deduplication, snapshots, and data protection, while beneficial, are also inefficient and strain performance, demanding even more RAM and processing power.
  4. Unnecessary Server Expenses: Often, organizations have servers with empty drive bays. Despite this, they purchase and maintain separate powerful “storage servers,” incurring extra costs.

The High Cost of Data Protection

Exiting VMware to eliminate high storage costs may also allow you to reduce the high cost of protecting VMware. Because of the inefficiencies in the HCI and dedicated storage array software, customers must also invest heavily in backup and recovery architectures, which include the backup software itself, a backup storage target, and a long-term object storage-based system to immutably store backup data so that it is protected from a ransomware attack.

Ironically, all of the investment in backup infrastructure has done little to stem the tide of ransomware. According to a recent VergeIO survey and study:

  1. It takes most customers 3+ weeks to recover from a ransomware attack
  2. It takes most customers 3+ days to realize they are under attack.

If the infrastructure can’t warn you it is under attack and takes days to realize it is happening, then almost every snapshot contains encrypted data, as do most backups. Pulling the correct data out of these backup copies is manual and time-consuming, which is why most recovery efforts take more than three weeks.

VergeIO’s Ultra-Converged Infrastructure: Eliminating High Storage Costs

VergeIO introduced VergeOS, an ultra-converged infrastructure solution to address the high storage costs dilemma. Boasting a unified, efficient code base, VergeOS promises:

Exiting VMware to Eliminate High Storage Costs
  1. Cost Efficiency: Customers can install server-class media like 15.3TB SSDs in their existing servers for a fraction of typical HCI / dedicated array costs while gaining over 300TB of storage capacity.
  2. Enhanced Performance: With these drives, users can potentially achieve over a million IOPS with improved data protection.
  3. Deduplication: Integrated into its core, VergeOS’s global inline deduplication incurs minimal CPU or RAM overhead.
  4. Snapshot Technology: Powered by IOclone technology, VergeIO’s snapshots act more like data clones, making them a viable backup solution. Add to that, IOfortify, and you have infrastructure-wide ransomware protection.
  5. Virtual Data Centers: VergeIO’s unique Virtual Data Center (VDC) technology encapsulates the entire data center and simplifies tasks like patching, disaster recovery, and ransomware resiliency.

The Verdict: Should You Turn Off Your Array?

For those using HCI, the benefits of VergeOS – from superior performance to reduced costs – make the switch compelling. VergeOS installs on the existing HCI hardware, breathing new life into it while improving performance, data protection, and ransomware resiliency. VergeIO features common sense licensing. VergeOS is licensed per physical host, not the number of processors, cores, RAM, or storage capacity. One license per physical server, and it includes all of the capabilities.

Even dedicated storage array customers will find it more cost-effective to change when weighing the high maintenance costs against VergeOS’s offerings. Most AFA customers tell us they can switch to VergeOS for considerably less than the cost of their current maintenance contract. Combine that with the cost savings of exiting VMware; these customers typically report a 50% reduction in TCO. As one customer said, “I’ll save money just by turning my AFA off.”

In conclusion, making informed decisions is crucial as the IT landscape evolves and storage costs skyrocket. Exiting VMware and considering alternatives like VergeOS can extend the savings beyond the VMware license. Many customers find their storage cost savings justify the migration while paving the way for enhanced performance and greater data resiliency.

Exiting VMware to eliminate high storage costs is one of many reasons to consider a VMware alternative, but you need to take a step-by-step approach. Join us for our webinar, “How to Exit VMware Step-by-Step,” for practical advice on how to develop a VMware exit strategy at a pace that makes sense for your organization.

Filed Under: Storage Tagged With: ,

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Ransomware has emerged as a dominant threat to global businesses, but are backups enough for ransomware recovery? The most recent VergeIO study, “Top Concerns of VMware Customers,” showed that 25% of respondents faced a ransomware attack in the past year. Notably, every one of these victims had recently fortified their backup infrastructure, but the average time to recover from an attack was still over three weeks.

Backups: The Existing Safety Net Has Holes

Most organizations count on backup systems as a primary defense line, and every data protection vendor suggests that customers increase their spending on backup and recovery infrastructure. Even primary storage and infrastructure vendors like VMware are establishing relationships with data protection vendors to cover gaps in their product’s ransomware resiliency capabilities.

Despite all this, the VergeIO survey results, showing an average three-week recovery time suggest that this investment is for naught. Where is data protection falling short?

  1. Data Transfer Delays: Transferring data from backup to production storage is tedious and lengthens recovery periods.
  2. Lag in Ransomware Detection: Often, a user’s inability to access systems, not IT discovery, signals an attack, resulting in a three-day average detection time.
  3. Encrypted Backups: Delayed detection allows ransomware to compromise snapshots and backup copies, necessitating a manual, multi-phased recovery strategy.

Why is Backup Ransomware Recovery So Slow?

There are a lot of reasons why recovery from ransomware takes so long. Partly, it is the fundamental issue with backup data. When you need to recover from any event, be it drive failure, a site disaster, or ransomware, you must physically copy or move data from a backup storage device to a production storage device. The more data, the longer recovery takes.

The Detection Problem

are backups enough for ransomware recovery
Wondering What’s Going On?

Again, VergeIO’s survey revealed that detection is a significant challenge that negatively impacts data recovery during a cyber attack. The survey found that, on average, it takes organizations three days to realize they are under attack. Moreover, the attack notification method is unreliable, as it often relies on users calling IT and reporting that they cannot log into their system. This notification time lag highlights the need for organizations to find solutions that can better detect and notify IT of an attack. It seems unlikely that rapid detection can come from backup software.

The Impact of Slow Detection

If it takes three days to discover that ransomware encrypts files in your environment, it dramatically impacts recovery time. First, in most cases, because of poorly implemented snapshot technology, all snapshot data will contain encrypted data. Three-day detection also means that the backups, which are next in line, also have intermixed encrypted data.

While recovery from backup is likely possible, the backup copies need to be manually examined to understand what data on them has been encrypted and what data has not. The result is these customers had to do an “interleaved” recovery, which means IT is restoring some data from some backups and other data from other backups. This manual interleaved recovery is why it took the average customer over three weeks to recover data after the ransomware attack. 

Key Requirements for Rapid Ransomware Recovery

Identification Critical for Ransomware Recovery

To recover quickly from a ransomware attack, the first and most crucial step is to get notified about the attack as soon as possible. This will enable you to isolate the protected copies and shut down the network to prevent the attack from spreading. It also reduces the infiltration of the attack into backup copies.

Zero Data Movement Ransomware Recovery

The second requirement is to have more frequent backups of your data, which should be immutable and easily accessible. This way, you can move the copies into production without data movement, which can help you recover from the attack more efficiently. Most backup software solutions require you to copy data to a separate storage system for backup and then to even another for immutability.

VergeOS – Infrastructure-Wide Ransomware Recovery

The VDC Foundation

To quickly recover from ransomware attacks with minimal, if any, data loss, it’s crucial to have a strong foundation. Our VergeOS solution uses Virtual Data Center (VDC) technology to provide this foundation. A VDC encapsulates an entire data center, much like a virtual machine (VM) encapsulates a physical server. Each VDC contains all the VMs, networking, and storage settings required for its workload or group.

VDCs can be easily moved, making them ideal for disaster recovery and specifically for ransomware recovery. For best results, IT departments should create multiple VDCs within their physical data center, each dedicated to a specific application, line of business, division, or customer.

Once the VDCs are created, a read-write copy of VergeOS is injected into each VDC from a read-only core copy. This protects the operating environment from any attack. In the unlikely event of an attack on the VergeOS instance within the VDC, customers can refresh it, and the read-only core will inject a new, clean copy of the OS into the VDC, thereby eliminating any contamination.

Moreover, VDCs provide additional value in the more common case of an attack at the application or file system level. Each VDC is an independent “walled garden”, making it nearly impossible for any malware to spread between virtual data centers. Lastly, VDCs make it easy for IT to test patching, as entire VDCs can be cloned in milliseconds.

VDC cloning enables IT to create a “lab” version of each VDC and apply patches to them first. IT can ensure that the patches work and don’t conflict before applying them to the production VDC. As we discuss in our article, “Ransomware Counts on Patch Tuesday,” applying patches quickly and securely is a critical aspect of a ransomware recovery plan.

Rapid Detection and Response

The VergeOS ransomware recovery capabilities enable customers to recover from an attack quickly with minimal data loss. First, VergeOS provides rapid detection using its IOfortify technology. Because VergeOS’s file system is built using a blockchain-like technology, it can quickly identify encrypted data. IOfortify, by monitoring unexpected spikes in new data creation, can pinpoint potential ransomware breaches in just 10 to 15 minutes.

are backups enough for ransomware recovery? No You need advanced detection.

Next, VergeOS’s IOclone-powered snapshots are inline deduplicated copies that can be created within milliseconds, multiple times per hour. These clone-like snapshots don’t impact performance no matter how many there are or how frequently they are taken. Most importantly, they are also immutable, meaning malware can’t change them. These snapshots can also be replicated cost-effectively to a disaster recovery site, fulfilling the 3-2-1 rule of backup.

Once IOfortify notifies IT of an attack, they can resort to the most recent snapshot, which, while protected, likely has a copy of the undetonated malware file. However, VergeOS can mount those snapshots in a quarantined state and provide information as to which VMs were causing IOfortify’s anomaly detection to trigger. IT merely needs to scan the quarantined snapshot and remove the malware.

After cleaning, this minutes-old snapshot can be promoted to production, and without data movement, the customer is back in operation. The production copy can either be deleted, ensuring the complete elimination of the ransomware attack, or quarantined so that IT can study it further to understand how the attack got into the environment and spread. To learn more about developing a ransomware recovery strategy, download our white paper, “Creating an Infrastructure-Wide Ransomware Resiliency Strategy.”

Conclusion

Ransomware attacks have become a formidable challenge for global businesses. Attacks like the recent MGM incident, which took ten days, underscore the need for rapid recovery. Are backups enough for ransomware recovery? No, while backup infrastructure remains a line of defense, the disturbing three-week average recovery time underscores its limitations.

By employing a multi-pronged approach that includes rapid detection using blockchain-esque technologies, immutable IOclone-powered snapshots, and virtual data center encapsulation, VergeOS aims to reduce the vulnerabilities in the ransomware recovery process. As organizations continue improving their ransomware recovery capabilities, they must consider a more comprehensive, infrastructure-wide approach. VergeOS is the way forward by ensuring swift recovery and minimal data loss in the face of ransomware threats.

Filed Under: Blog, Ransomware

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the impact of VMware's inefficiency

Licensing costs contribute to VMware’s total costs, but IT professionals almost always underestimate the impact of VMware’s inefficiency. They listed licensing costs as their primary concern in our recent survey. Still, other concerns, like required premature server and storage upgrades, lack of virtual machine density, and continual investments in backup infrastructure, highlight its inefficiency.

VMware’s inefficiency is brought on by years of plugging holes in the product through a never-ending series of bolt-on fixes, which often increases licensing costs and requires more hardware than necessary and more IT professionals to manage an increasingly complex environment. Even if VMware were to freeze its prices or even lower them, the ripple impact of its inefficiency makes a VMware exit to a more efficient alternative platform a wise strategy.

Understanding the Layers of Data Center Infrastructure

Most vendors divide the data center infrastructure into three layers. A hypervisor like VMware ESXi virtualizes the compute layer. A storage layer that in most medium to large-sized data centers is a dedicated storage array because of the shortcomings of virtualized storage products like VMware’s vSAN, and a networking layer that is built using proprietary networking hardware because of the expense of software-defined networking solutions like VMware’s NSX.

While it isn’t forgotten about, there is a fourth layer that is, for some reason, not included in the typical infrastructure discussion: backup and disaster recovery. In theory, with the right hypervisor software and storage capabilities, there should be no need for this to be a separate layer. Still, because of shortcomings, most organizations invest a large part of the IT budget into it.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient HCI

VMware started as a server virtualization and consolidation solution. Before VMware, each application ran on a dedicated server. VMware made it so IT could safely run multiple applications on a single server as virtual machines (VM). The idea behind hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) is to extend that concept and eliminate the need for dedicated storage arrays and network appliances by moving the software that drives these dedicated appliances onto the same set of servers that VMware was using.

the impact of VMware's inefficiency

In the same way that VMware lowered costs by eliminating the need for a server for every application, HCI should lower costs by eliminating the need for a dedicated set of appliances for every aspect of storage and networking. The impact of VMware’s inefficiency means that most data centers have chosen not to use HCI and instead continue to use a legacy three-tier architecture. The problem is that most HCI vendors continue to use ESXi and run their storage or networking software as a virtual machine under ESXi, meaning they must navigate through the same VMware tax overhead as virtualized applications.

The result is HCI has not achieved the price advantages nor the operational simplicity that the original entrants into the market claimed. As a result, the legacy three-tier infrastructure is still the most common architecture in data centers.

HCI’s Inefficient Networking Problem

HCI also has an east-west inter-node network issue since storage and network operations must coordinate separately across all the cluster servers. Since each of these services is separate from the hypervisor, it triples the amount of inter-node communication, which limits scalability.

Because of the impact of VMware’s inefficiency, HCI networking limitations go beyond east-west traffic issues. In most cases, HCI vendors offer almost no additional network functionality besides what is embedded into the hypervisor. Or, in the case of VMware’s NSX, which is reasonably robust, it is not included as part of the hypervisor, and the add-on cost significantly increases the VMware license cost. In a recent blog, VMware suggested the best way to overcome its ransomware vulnerabilities was to deploy NSX, which, not coincidentally, almost triples the cost of the license.

VergeOS Eliminates the Layers

VergeIO is Ultraconverged Infrastructure; instead of re-creating the data center layers in software, VergeOS unifies them, including secure data protection, into a single code base that dramatically increases efficiency. Its efficiency lowers costs, enabling IT to do more with its existing resources while simplifying operations. Most customers can reduce physical server demand by 30% or more, which means running existing servers longer and ordering new servers less frequently.

VergeOS provides complete Layer 2 and Layer 3 network functionality, eliminating the concerns over east-west traffic contention and the need for separate network appliances. It also eases administration as network management becomes a seamless part of the data center infrastructure.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient Storage

Most HCI vendors are storage vendors in disguise. They make a storage software solution that can run as a VM within a hypervisor, typically VMware. These solutions, including vSAN, suffer from performance issues, partly because of vendors’ VMware performance tax and odd development choices.

Like HCI in general, storage, specifically in this architecture, should deliver rather significant cost savings and deliver better performance with the right architecture design. IT should be able to add capacity to their existing servers for a fraction of the cost of a “shelf upgrade” using a dedicated storage array. However, the impact of VMware’s inefficiency is felt most severely when HCI tries to provide storage performance and services comparable to a dedicated storage array.

In the survey above, we spoke to a customer looking to add about 300TBs of storage to their three-year-old All-Flash Array. HCI, if it had an efficient storage capability, should eliminate the AFA from consideration because the customer had several servers with twelve or more available storage expansion bays.

A 15.36TB NVMe SSD can be easily had for about $1,500. That means the customer can get 300TB of raw NVMe capacity, delivering well over one million IOPS for about $30,000, and insert them into the empty drive bays in their existing servers. When asked what it would cost to add 300TB of raw capacity to their Pure Storage array, they said at least 10X that cost.

As you can see, storage should be the area where HCI enjoys a significant price advantage, but again, like in other areas, it falls short:

  1. Since most HCI vendors are storage vendors, charging by the amount of capacity in use, the cost to add storage to HCI quickly rivals that of dedicated storage arrays.
  2. Most HCI solutions can’t add storage to available drive bays on just a few servers in the HCI instance. The capacity must be added to all the servers, or the customer must buy additional servers that match those in place.
  3. HCI inefficiencies mean the solutions can’t reach anything close to the performance potential of NVMe flash drives.
  4. Using storage services like deduplication, data protection, and snapshot retention times, further impacts storage and compute performance.

As an example of how storage services impact HCI’s efficiency, look no further than deduplication. While most HCI solutions support deduplication for capacity efficiency, in most cases, it is a bolt-on solution and not part of the original code base. VMware vSAN, for example, added deduplication years after it first appeared on the market. Nutanix’s deduplication appeared almost a decade after the product first shipped.

As a result, using deduplication from these vendors typically requires the addition of more powerful processors, additional memory, and, in some cases, changes to data protection strategies.

Limitations and compromises are the impact of implementing almost any storage feature as part of a virtualized environment:

  • Snapshots are limited to 32 total, and the best practice is not to have a snapshot that is older than a few days.
  • Data protection from media failure is complex and takes an undue toll on inter-node connectivity.
  • Replication for disaster recovery almost always requires a separate product.

VergeOS Supercharges HCI Storage Performance

Storage services are built into VergeOS and run as an equal citizen to the hypervisor instead of a subservient VM. Storage capacity can be inserted into nodes “post-facto” or storage-mostly nodes (a couple of processors and storage) can be added to the existing instance.

VergeOS provides a complete suite of storage services like deduplication, replication, and unlimited snapshots that can act as backups because they are more like clones, than traditional snapshot technology. Because storage is an equal citizen in VergeOS, our storage software is equally efficient and overcomes the challenges IT faces with VMware’s inefficient approach to storage. All these services can run without impacting performance, limiting their use, or forcing IT to make compromises elsewhere.

It is essential to highlight the VergeIO common sense licensing model. VergeOS is licensed by the physical server, not the number of processors, cores, amount of RAM, or storage capacity. In the above example, the customer can add 300TB of capacity with zero additional licensing charge.

The Impact of VMware’s Inefficient Data Protection

VMware also provides a very inefficient means of data protection, forcing all customers to create a separate backup and disaster recovery infrastructure. While it has basic protection from media failure and the ability, at an extra cost, to migrate VMs if a physical server fails, its snapshot capabilities are anemic at best. And their own best practices state, “Do not use VMware snapshots as backups.” For the most part, VMware’s snapshots are only used one at a time to provide data to a backup application and then quickly removed for fear of negative performance impact.

As a result, most customers implement separate backup software, which sends data to a separate backup storage area, which then must send it to another immutable backup storage area to protect against ransomware. These customers typically have a separate disaster recovery (DR) solution replicating data to a DR site. VMware’s inability to adequately protect itself is the cause of all of this additional investment in data protection.

The backup and recovery infrastructure becomes a separate cost and management point, often requiring specialized IT personnel. However, this additional investment does more than add to the total cost of VMware’s inefficiency. It complicates other tasks, such as patch upgrades.

For example, in our survey, we spoke to a VMware customer using HPE Zerto as a more powerful disaster recovery tool because of concerns about VMware’s ransomware vulnerabilities. There is an obvious cost concern with Zerto, but this customer’s current experience highlights a concern with the bolt-on approach caused by VMware’s inefficient approach to data protection.

In this case, the customer had a critical patch from VMware that closed a vulnerability in ESXi to a known ransomware exploit. However, they found that Zerto was not yet compatible with this latest release of VMware, and it would be at least three months before they were. The use of bolt-on technologies forces the customer into an awkward position. Do they deploy the VMware update and go without disaster recovery for three months, or do they keep disaster recovery working but put the organization at risk for a known ransomware exploit? While this situation does not increase the customer’s hard cost, the impact of VMware’s inefficiency certainly increases their mental overhead and anguish.

VergeOS is Secure and Resilient

Unlike VMware’s inefficient ransomware protection, VergeOS was built from the start to be a secure infrastructure software. The OS itself is hardened against attack. When combined with virtual data centers, immutable snapshots, and rapid alerting of encryption activity, customers can bounce back from ransomware threats in minutes with no data loss.

Conclusion

While licensing costs are a valid concern, the total cost of VMware’s inefficiency goes well beyond the surface. Inefficient HCI, storage, and data protection layers contribute significantly to operational complexity and expenses. VergeIO’s innovative approach with VergeOS offers a comprehensive solution that eliminates these inefficiencies, reducing costs, and simplifying operations. As data centers evolve, it’s essential to consider alternatives that optimize efficiency and empower IT professionals to do more with existing resources.

To learn more about how VergeOS can revolutionize your data center, watch our on-demand webinar as we discuss the results of our survey of almost 200 VMware customers and provide a live demonstration of VergeOS recovering from a ransomware attack.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: , ,

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According to our recent survey, one of the requirements of any VMware alternative is to exit VMware without a server refresh. IT leaders are driving this requirement for three primary reasons:

  1. VMware’s latest versions force decommissioning server hardware long before it has outlived its applicable service.
  2. The quality and performance of server hardware built within the last five years suggest that it can reliably support workloads for up to ten years.
  3. Delaying or eliminating server refreshes is a great way to contend with flat budgets.

Why, then, does VMware require customers to upgrade to go through a server refresh so they can run the latest versions of their software? Why also do most VMware alternatives force you to buy prepackaged hardware bundles? The answers come down to efficiency and hardware dependency. Infrastructure software vendors with bloated code and strict server hardware requirements are forcing you into a lifetime of premature server refreshes.

Efficiency Eliminates Server Refreshes

Skip the heavy lifting, exit VMware without a server refresh
Skip the heavy lifting, exit VMware without a server refresh

Vendors force you into server refreshes to hide the inefficiencies in their code and the lack of foresight in design. Most infrastructure software is an assortment of different software applications, often from different vendors, that they attempt to “glue” together through a common management GUI.

VMware, for example, uses ESXi for the hypervisor, vSAN for the storage software, and NSX for the networking software. Each application has a different code base and overlapping code, which compounds VMware’s already significant virtualization tax.

As a result, there is a lot of redundant code and metadata in the infrastructure software and extra communication overhead to keep these separate applications in sync. The lack of integration between these applications creates significant overhead that impacts server performance and scalability.

Traditional Three-Tier Architectures don’t fare much better. Customers still face four to five-year refreshes for servers, plus they now add a separate refresh cycle for storage. There is also the unnecessarily high cost of a dedicated storage array.

Ransomware Makes It Worse

Our server also highlighted a significant concern about ransomware, and customers are constantly looking for solutions to give them an edge against the ever-evolving threat of having all of their data encrypted. In response, vendors constantly release patches to close down vulnerabilities in their code, releasing new software (for a fee) that keeps their older software safer. For example, VMware promotes NSX to help better protect ESXi. Instead of starting with secure infrastructure as a software core, they are bolting on potential fixes, which further impact performance and force customers into premature server refreshes.

According to our recent survey of almost 200 VMware customers, using existing hardware and improving ransomware protection were two of their top requirements for a VMware alternative. Join us for our live webinar tomorrow at 1:00 PM ET to learn the study results and see a live recovery from a ransomware attack. Register Now

Bundles Don’t Eliminate Server Refreshes

To hide continual software bloat, some vendors create predefined server bundles. These bundles use the latest processing power, which depends on specific CPU chip capabilities and fast NVMe flash drives to hide inefficiency, but they don’t eliminate server refreshes. They make server refreshes even more challenging. The customer still needs to refresh servers to provide enough power to compensate for the bloated software, but now they can only get that hardware from one or a tiny list of certified vendors. IT teams need to look no further than vSAN-Ready Nodes or Nutanix’s very restrictive hardware compatibility list as examples.

Turnkey HCI Makes it Worse

The turnkey bundle approach also makes a VMware Exit less appealing. Vendors that force the customer to buy new hardware as they are exiting VMware increase the costs of the exit dramatically. They also make installation more difficult because, at least for a while, the new hardware and the old must co-exist in the same data center.

VergeIO Eliminates Premature Server Refreshes

VergeIO unifies networking, virtualization, and storage software into a single software code base, eliminating the redundances common in other solutions. It also eliminates the extra and unnecessary lines of communication between the services, enabling a more scalable infrastructure.


Breathes New Life Into Existing Servers

VergeOS does more than leverage existing hardware; its efficiency gives it a new lease on life. Our customers typically can increase overall virtual machine density and improve the performance of I/O intensive applications without resorting to an expensive dedicated storage array. Most VergeIO customers find they can delay or even eliminate the subsequent several server upgrades. When it does come time to add new servers to the infrastructure, add whatever brand and type of servers you’d like. VergeOS enables you to mix different server types within the same VergeOS instance.

Run Servers Until They Break

There is a common saying, “sweating the asset,” which means getting more than the typical four years from server and storage hardware. VergeOS enables customers to run the asset until it breaks permanently. Customers can do this because the entire infrastructure is redundant; VergeOS transitions VMs to surviving servers if a server fails. There is no extra charge for high availability (HA); VergeOS includes HA and all other features in every product edition. VergeIO has production customers running servers over six years old with no complaints about performance or fear of hardware failure. Those servers can co-exist with servers a few months old within the same instance. VergeOS eliminates server refreshes while maintaining availability.

Ransomware Resilient from Day One

Ransomware resiliency is not an afterthought with VergeOS. As we discuss in our paper, “Creating an Infrastructure-Wide Ransomware Resiliency Strategy,” it is built into the core of our Utraconverged Infrastructure (UCI) platform. Our multi-layered, infrastructure-wide ransomware protection strategy includes the following:

  1. Virtual Data Centers (VDC) that enable customers to shrink the attack surface
  2. IOclone, which provides frequent, immutable snapshots without impacting performance
  3. IOfortify, which provides rapid detection of a potential attack and a hardened operating environment that acts as firmware, eliminating the potential of platform-level exploits.

Conclusion – Skip The Server Refresh

Exiting VMware without undergoing a server refresh is crucial for organizations looking to maximize their IT infrastructure efficiency and cost-effectiveness. VMware’s insistence on frequent server hardware upgrades and the challenges posed by ransomware threats have left many IT leaders seeking alternatives. However, most alternatives require new hardware and enforce restrictive hardware compatibility lists.

VergeIO enables you to exit VMware using your existing hardware, extracting more life from it while not compromising features or data resiliency.

Filed Under: VMwareExit Tagged With: ,

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VMware is coming under ever-increasing scrutiny for its ransomware shortcomings, and now customers are considering a VMware exit for ransomware resiliency instead of just to reduce licensing costs. The heightened concerns come from increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, and recent VMware vulnerabilities have been part of the problem.

In conversations with numerous VMware users infected by a ransomware attack, they often recount tales of belated attack discoveries, followed by intensive recovery efforts that take weeks, if not months, to restore their systems entirely. VergeIO has identified key ransomware shortcomings in the VMware environment, and offers a viable means to address them effectively by exiting to VergeOS.

So, how can IT professionals break this cycle?

The Infrastructure-Wide Approach to Ransomware Resiliency

Click to Watch a Ransomware Recovery in Action

Ransomware resiliency revolves around more than backup software and hardware. If you have to count on backups to recover from a ransomware attack, you are in for a very long and painful process. Counting on a separate, third party backup process as VMware does, is why customers are considering a VMware exit for better ransomware resiliency, in addition to trying to reduce licensing costs.

A more comprehensive approach to ransomware resiliency is required, focusing on:

  1. Limiting Attack Surface: This means not all virtual machines (VMs) are exposed, creating barriers between them. The Virtual Data Center (VDC) technology by VergeOS mimics this concept, bundling VMs, storage, and network configurations within a group of applications, creating a “walled garden” to contain potential threats. By default, it is nearly impossible for a malware trigger file to move between VDCs.
  2. Prioritizing Frequent Data Protection: Regular backups won’t suffice. Ransomware can encrypt data faster than most backup schedules can accommodate. This ability to deliver rapid, frequent data protection is where VergeOS stands out with its IOclone-based snapshot technology. It ensures frequent, space-efficient, and impact-free data protection. VergeOS snapshots are independent copies rather than legacy snapshots that are a cascading tree of dependence. With VergeOS, customers can execute snapshots frequently with no disruption to performance.
  3. Immutable Data Storage: Traditional backups can still be compromised. VergeOS ensures that IOclone-based snapshots are immutable and safe from ransomware intrusions unless deliberately changed to read-write by an authenticated Administrator. Malware may launch within a single virtual data center, but it can’t spread beyond it, and it can’t infect immutable protected copies, which can easily be only a few minutes old.
  4. Timely Patch Application: VMware Administrators often need help to apply patching timely, potentially exposing vulnerabilities longer than organizations would like. VergeOS uses its VDC and snapshot technology to allow quick patch tests, ensuring smooth deployments without disruptions. IT Administrators can clone the entire VDC into a “Lab” VDC and test the patch impact against the entire data center without disruption to production.
  5. Swift Ransomware Detection: Recognizing a breach early is crucial. VergeOS’ IOfortify technology swiftly detects potential threats, often within minutes, allowing for prompt action and containment. The recovery effort increases in complexity exponentially with each minute the attack goes undetected.
  6. Efficient Attack Victim Identification: Once contained, it’s vital to pinpoint affected VMs. VergeOS’ telemetry information, coupled with IOfortify timestamps, accurately indicates compromised systems for quick recovery. It enables you to focus on the few infected VMs instead of needing to scan every VM in the environment.
  7. Zero-Data Movement Recovery: VergeOS enables a near-instant recovery process, allowing IT Administrators to restore operations promptly without lengthy data transfer processes. There is no data movement. Bring up the most recent snapshot, scan for a potential trigger file, remove it if present, and launch the clone into production. There is no data movement.
  8. Detailed Forensics: Instead of hastily erasing infected datasets, VergeOS enables you to quarantine and retain them, offering valuable insights into the attack mechanisms and aiding with future prevention strategies.
  9. Robust Operating Environment: VergeOS stands out with its hardened operating environment, ensuring that its core remains unexploited, and in case of any breach, a quick restoration is possible.

Our newest white paper, Creating an Infrastructure-Wide Ransomware Resiliency Strategy, will enable you to create a strategy to help you recover from an attack within minutes and with no data loss —Download Now. Justify a VMware exit for ransomware resiliency in addition to reducing licensing costs.

Rethinking Infrastructure Choices with VergeIO

VMware exit for ransomware resiliency

VergeIO’s focus isn’t a mere reaction to the ransomware challenges IT faces; it’s a well-thought-out strategy integrated into the core code base from day one. It ensures a fortified operating environment. When seeking a VMware alternative, cost savings are essential but not exclusive. If, during the VMware Exit, you can improve your ransomware resiliency, it makes the decision both compelling and logical.

Converting your VMware environment is painless and risk-free. Schedule a technical whiteboard session; our experts will walk you through the process.

Read about how ransomware infiltrated MGM’s infrastructure on 9/15/2023 encrypting more than 100 ESXi servers.

Watch as we protect, detect, and recover a VM that is being attacked by ransomware.

Filed Under: Ransomware Tagged With: , ,