VMware

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Solving VDI Boot Storms is the number one requirement to driving Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) adoption. VDI has become essential for organizations supporting remote workforces, educational institutions, healthcare providers, and engineering firms. However, despite its advantages, VDI deployments frequently face significant storage challenges—especially during boot storms.

Why Do VDI Boot Storms Occur?

Boot storms happen when many virtual desktops simultaneously boot up or log in, causing a sudden surge of storage activity. Traditional storage architectures, including most virtual SAN (vSAN) solutions, struggle to handle these simultaneous I/O demands, resulting in significant latency and reduced performance.

The vSAN Bottleneck

Although vSANs are appealing for their potential cost savings, their architecture typically relies on running storage as an application inside a virtual machine (VM) under the control of the hypervisor. This additional software layer introduces significant overhead and performance inefficiencies, particularly under heavy workloads like a boot storm.

Examples of this approach include VMware vSAN and Nutanix AOS Storage. This architecture involves multiple steps for each storage request:

Solving VDI Boot Storms
  1. The application VM sends an I/O request to the hypervisor.
  2. The hypervisor routes the request to the storage VM.
  3. The storage VM processes the request and communicates back to the hypervisor.
  4. The hypervisor delivers the response back to the application VM.

This multi-step interaction introduces latency, increases hypervisor dependency, and degrades overall performance, especially during intensive scenarios like boot storms. Moreover, vSAN-based solutions require storage VMs to frequently coordinate metadata and resiliency across nodes, creating additional network load and complexity.

The Scale Problem

Boot storms are particularly problematic in environments with hundreds or thousands of virtual desktops booting simultaneously. Each desktop generates a surge of storage I/O requests that must be processed in real-time. In large VDI environments, this I/O demand can overwhelm vSAN-based systems, leading to:

  • Slow login times, with users experiencing delays of 2-5 minutes when starting their desktops.
  • Unresponsive applications, as latency spikes impact application launch times and in-session performance.
  • Infrastructure strain, as overloaded storage controllers and network congestion slow down overall system responsiveness.

Imagine this I/O back-and-forth between the virtual desktop, the hypervisor, and the storage VM happening 1,000 times per second while hundreds of virtual desktops are simultaneously booting. Even all-flash vSAN solutions cannot eliminate this inefficiency, as the multi-layered architecture and the need for metadata synchronization across nodes still constrain them.

The High Cost of Solving VDI Boot Storms with AFAs

Due to these limitations, many organizations resort to dedicated all-flash arrays (AFA) to handle the storage-intensive nature of boot storms. While AFAs improve performance, they significantly raise the cost per desktop, making VDI a much more expensive proposition. A storage infrastructure that should enable cost savings instead becomes one of the biggest budget concerns for IT teams.

For a more detailed breakdown of vSAN limitations and how they impact performance, read the whitepaper:
Understanding vSAN Limitations in High-Demand Environments

The Problem with Deduplication and RAID in VDI

Many storage solutions use deduplication and RAID for efficiency and data protection. However, these technologies introduce additional challenges during boot storms.

  • Deduplication Bottlenecks: Deduplication optimizes storage by reducing redundant data blocks. However, during a boot storm, hundreds of virtual desktops simultaneously access the same deduplicated blocks, creating a bottleneck. A single storage controller is forced to serve thousands of requests from the same physical block, leading to I/O contention and severe performance degradation.
  • RAID Parity Overhead: Traditional RAID architectures, particularly RAID 5 and RAID 6, use parity calculations to provide data protection. These calculations add substantial processing overhead. During a boot storm, the storage system must handle thousands of simultaneous read operations, forcing RAID controllers to decode parity data rapidly. This not only slows boot times but also creates an imbalance in read/write workloads.

These factors make traditional storage solutions fundamentally unfit for high-scale VDI environments.

Introducing VergeFS: A Better Approach

Solving VDI boot storms requires a highly integrated, performance-oriented storage solution to effectively overcome these challenges. VergeFS, integrated directly into VergeOS, offers a compelling alternative to traditional vSAN architectures and avoids the high cost per desktop of dedicated all-flash arrays. Unlike typical vSAN solutions that require additional software layers or dedicated storage hardware, VergeFS is built directly into VergeOS, eliminating unnecessary overhead and complexity.

Solving VDI Boot Storms with VergeFS

VergeFS’s integrated architecture ensures exceptionally efficient I/O handling, allowing it to handle boot storms seamlessly. It achieves bare-metal-level performance by simplifying data paths, eliminating the overhead commonly associated with external storage arrays, vSANs, or complex RAID configurations.

  • Integrated Storage and Compute: VergeFS and the hypervisor runs within the same code base, eliminating the need for separate storage VMs and removing unnecessary I/O hops.
  • Efficient I/O Distribution: Instead of centralizing I/O requests to a storage VM, VergeFS distributes them across multiple storage nodes, allowing the entire infrastructure to handle storage loads efficiently.
  • Efficient Deduplication: Integrated within the same code base as VergeOS, it enhances all facets of the infrastructure and incurs immeasurable additional overhead due to sharing identical metadata.
  • No RAID Bottlenecks: VergeFS replaces RAID parity calculations with a distributed mirroring approach, significantly reducing latency and improving boot performance.

The Advantages of VergeOS Deduplication

VergeOS eliminates the deduplication issue by integrating it natively within the core of its architecture. Because VergeFS and VergeOS share a common code base, deduplication is not a bolted-on feature or post-processing task—it is part of the storage fabric itself. Metadata used for deduplication is the same metadata leveraged for managing the file system and data distribution, incurring negligible overhead. This efficient design enables VergeFS to deliver the capacity-saving benefits of deduplication without compromising I/O performance during even the most demanding boot storms.

Solving VDI Boot Storms with Distributed Mirroring

One of VergeFS’s key advantages is its use of distributed mirroring, enabling multiple drives to feed data requests simultaneously. Unlike RAID configurations that require parity decoding, distributed mirroring directly serves data from multiple mirrored copies across storage drives, drastically reducing latency and increasing throughput during intensive I/O operations.

Additionally, VergeOS’ integrated deduplication offsets the capacity penalty common with other mirrored data protection models. This means IT teams get the benefits of high-performance mirroring without excessive storage overhead.

Real-World Results with VergeFS

Solving VDI boot storms with VergeFS has been independently verified by reputable third parties and at customer deployments. These proof points demonstrate the significant performance advantages of VergeFS.

  • Storage Review Validation: Independent testing by Storage Review confirmed that VergeOS, leveraging VergeFS, successfully booted 1,000 virtual machines in under 70 seconds—far beyond what is possible with traditional vSAN architectures.
  • 6X Faster than VMware and Omnissa: CCSI, a Desktop-as-a-Service provider and VergeIO customer, found that virtual desktops running on VergeFS booted up to six times faster compared to equivalent environments using VMware Horizon or Omnissa.

This real-world validation shows that VergeFS delivers tangible performance benefits that translate directly into improved user experience and reduced IT overhead.

The Cost Advantage

By eliminating costly add-ons like AFAs, reducing hardware requirements, and removing RAID-based performance bottlenecks, VergeFS significantly lowers the cost per virtual desktop. A VergeFS deployment is 10X less expensive than using a dedicated AFA. IT teams can scale VDI deployments more affordably while maintaining high-performance standards.

For more insights into choosing the right VDI infrastructure, download the whitepaper:
Choosing The Right Alternative to VMware Horizon and Citrix for VDI Solutions.

Conclusion

Organizations facing VDI storage challenges, especially boot storms, should strongly consider solutions designed explicitly for efficiency and performance. VergeFS, fully integrated into VergeOS, provides a proven alternative to traditional VDI storage architectures, ensuring rapid, predictable boot performance even under heavy load conditions.

By adopting VergeFS, IT teams can eliminate RAID bottlenecks, reduce complexity, avoid the high cost of dedicated all-flash storage and eliminate future storage refreshes, all while delivering a seamless user experience.

Learn more by attending our live webinar:
Register for the VDI Alternatives Webinar on March 27, 2025

Filed Under: VDI Tagged With: , ,

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Organizations considering a VMware exit should also consider alternatives to proprietary networking. Extending infrastructure modernization to networking has the potential to further lower costs and improve flexibility. Why continue paying for expensive, proprietary networking hardware when an integrated, software-defined alternative is available at no extra cost?

The Hidden Costs of Proprietary Networking

alternatives to proprietary networking

Many IT teams have spent years managing networking the traditional way—with dedicated hardware appliances for routing, firewalls, VPNs, and vendor-locked switches. These environments were built assuming that specialized, proprietary hardware was necessary to maintain performance, security, and reliability.

Proprietary networking relies on multiple dedicated appliances, each playing a specific role in the infrastructure. A typical IT environment might include:

  • Routers for managing external and internal traffic
  • Firewalls for enforcing security policies and filtering traffic
  • VPN appliances for remote access and site-to-site connectivity
  • Proprietary switches that lock organizations into a single vendor’s ecosystem

Managing this environment necessitates distinct management interfaces, multiple licensing agreements, and firmware updates across various devices. Scaling or implementing changes can be cumbersome, requiring additional licenses or expensive hardware upgrades. Furthermore, proprietary networking often demands specialized vendor-specific expertise, frequently leading organizations to invest in classes and certifications.

Interoperability is another major challenge. Many networking vendors design their hardware and software to work best within their ecosystem, making it difficult—or even impossible—to mix and match solutions from different vendors. This locks organizations into a single vendor’s roadmap and pricing model, reducing flexibility and increasing long-term costs.

The Alternative: VergeOS with VergeFabric

alternatives to proprietary networking

One of the alternatives to proprietary networking is VergeFabric, a SDN solution fully integrated into VergeOS, provides all the core networking functions needed to replace legacy network hardware at no additional cost and without requiring extra resources from physical servers.

Instead of managing separate proprietary networking appliances, IT teams can consolidate routing, firewalling, VPN services, and network segmentation into a software-defined solution that runs natively within VergeOS.

By replacing dedicated network appliances with VergeFabric, organizations gain:

  • Integrated routing and traffic management that eliminates the need for standalone routers with BGP, OSPF, and EIGRP support
  • Built-in firewalling that provides stateful rule enforcement directly within the hypervisor
  • VPN capabilities that support IPSec and WireGuard VPNs without requiring a separate VPN appliance
  • Multi-site connectivity that establishes seamless software-defined network overlays between remote locations without complex SD-WAN hardware
  • Switching without vendor lock-in that works with any standard Ethernet switch, reducing dependency on expensive proprietary hardware
  • Mixed hardware support allowing disparate switches to act as one

No Additional Licensing Fees, No Extra Resource Overhead

Unlike standalone SDN solutions or VMware NSX, VergeFabric is not an add-on, a separate virtual appliance, or a paid upgrade—it is fully integrated into VergeOS, which means:

  • No additional software or licensing costs, as all networking features are included as part of VergeOS, which is licensed by server and not by core.
  • No resource drain on the physical server hardware, unlike VMware NSX, which requires dedicated SDN controller VMs that consume CPU and RAM
  • No complex setup or configuration, as VergeFabric is built into VergeOS and managed through a single interface alongside compute and storage

How VergeFabric Replaces Dedicated Appliances

Considering alternatives to proprietary networking as organizations move away from VMware to lower costs enables them to extend their savings. Proprietary networking often means managing multiple appliances and licensing agreements. VergeFabric eliminates the need for these devices by offering complete networking functionality as a software-defined solution inside VergeOS.

Integrated Routing and Firewalling Without Dedicated Appliances

Instead of relying on a Cisco, Juniper, or Fortinet router, VergeFabric provides fully integrated Layer 3 routing and firewalling with:

  • Dynamic routing protocols including BGP, OSPF, and EIGRP
  • Stateful firewalling with per-VM and per-VDC rule enforcement
  • Network segmentation at both the VM and Virtual Data Center (VDC) level

With VergeFabric natively handling these functions, there is no need for a separate firewall or router appliance, saving both hardware costs and administrative overhead.

Secure VPN Connectivity Without a Dedicated Appliance for VPNs

Many organizations rely on hardware-based VPN appliances, such as Cisco AnyConnect, Fortinet FortiGate, or Palo Alto Prisma Access, to establish secure site-to-site and remote access connections. VergeFabric eliminates the need for standalone VPN devices with:

  • Site-to-site VPN using IPSec and WireGuard for secure, multi-location connectivity
  • Client-based VPN access for remote workers, enabling secure user connections without extra VPN licensing fees
  • End-to-end encryption that ensures traffic between sites is protected without requiring third-party security appliances

SD-WAN Alternative for Multi-Site Networking

VergeFabric is an alternative to SD-WAN solutions for organizations with multiple locations, eliminating the need for proprietary SD-WAN appliances. Features include:

  • Software-defined inter-site networking that enables seamless communication between remote data centers without dedicated SD-WAN hardware
  • Dynamic routing to optimize traffic flow between locations automatically
  • Integrated VPN encryption to secure connections without requiring expensive SD-WAN tunnels

Network Services Without a Separate DHCP or DNS Appliance

Many IT teams rely on dedicated DHCP and DNS servers, such as Windows Server DHCP or Infoblox appliances, for network services. VergeFabric eliminates this requirement by providing:

  • A built-in DHCP server for automatic IP address management
  • Static DHCP reservations for simplified device provisioning
  • Integrated DNS services to reduce dependency on external DNS servers

Since these features run inside VergeOS, there is no need for separate networking appliances or additional virtual machines, further reducing infrastructure complexity.

A Future-Proof Networking Strategy

Proprietary networking locks organizations into expensive, complex architectures that are difficult to scale. VergeFabric provides a future-proof alternative that:

  • Eliminates vendor lock-in and reduces costs by using software-defined networking instead of hardware appliances
  • Simplifies management by consolidating routing, security, and VPN functions into VergeOS
  • Improves security and scalability with built-in firewalling, VPN, and site-to-site networking
  • Provides a gradual transition path from hardware-based networking to fully software-defined networking
  • Mix hardware from different vendors as needs or relationships change

If your organization plans to move away from VMware, now is the perfect time to rethink your networking strategy. VergeFabric provides a seamless, integrated alternative to proprietary networking without extra cost or resource overhead.

Explore VergeFabric today and see how software-defined networking can transform your infrastructure.

Learn More | Download the White Paper | Register for the Webinar

Filed Under: Networking Tagged With: , ,

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The move saves $150,000 annually and boosts IT efficiency

Ann Arbor, MI – February 18th, 2025 – Lancaster Central School District has successfully transitioned to VergeIO’s VergeOS, achieving $150,000 in annual cost savings while improving performance, data protection, and storage efficiency.

Prior to the transition, the district faced a substantial increase in licensing costs, creating budget concerns. Additionally, the previous solution fell short in storage efficiency, struggling with deduplication, snapshot performance, and resiliency. Lancaster’s IT team evaluated multiple virtualization solutions in search of a more cost-effective and high-performance alternative before selecting VergeIO’s integrated ultraconverged infrastructure platform.

“We needed a solution that wasn’t just a replacement for our existing virtualization platform, but an improvement. VergeIO delivered exactly that.”
– Eric Miller, Manager of Information Services, Lancaster Central School District

Challenges with Previous Virtualized SAN Solutions

Before transitioning, Lancaster encountered several issues with its previous virtualized SAN solution, including:

  • Rising capacity-based licensing costs, making budgeting unpredictable
  • Snapshot performance degradation, limiting recovery options
  • Inefficient deduplication, increasing storage requirements
  • Complex stretched cluster dependencies, leading to potential disruptions

Why Lancaster Chose VergeIO

After a thorough evaluation, VergeIO stood out as the preferred option due to its cost-effectiveness, storage integration, and ease of use. VergeIO directly integrates storage into the hypervisor, unlike other virtualization solutions, eliminating the need for external storage solutions.

Additional factors that influenced Lancaster’s decision included:

  • Superior support – VergeIO offers 100% US-based support with direct access to engineers
  • Inline global deduplication – VergeFS reduced storage consumption without performance penalties
  • Snapshot performance – VergeFS snapshots are instantaneous and impact-free, enabling more reliable backups and recovery
  • Resiliency improvements – Unlike Lancaster’s previous stretched clusters, VergeIO’s active-active deployment maintained uptime during ISP failures, ensuring seamless operations

“We wanted a system that did not require constant monitoring. VergeIO is so good at handling things behind the scenes that we can concentrate on improving and developing new solutions for our district leveraging the VergeIO platform.”
– Tim Johnson, Systems Administrator, Lancaster Central School District

Seamless Migration and Immediate Benefits

Lancaster deployed VergeIO in May 2024 as a proof of concept and completed its full transition to production workloads by November 2024. The move resulted in:

  • $150,000 in annual cost savings by eliminating substantial license fee increases
  • Simplified IT operations, allowing the team to focus on strategic projects
  • Improved storage efficiency with VergeFS’s global deduplication
  • Eliminated VMware’s performance bottlenecks, including snapshot and cluster dependency issues

“Lancaster Central School District’s move to VergeIO is a perfect example of how organizations can escape rising virtualization costs while improving operational efficiency. We look forward to supporting Lancaster’s journey and helping more organizations make the switch.”
– Yan Ness, CEO of VergeIO

Comparing vSAN Alternatives: Free Expert Webinar

For IT professionals facing similar challenges, VergeIO is hosting a live webinar featuring storage and virtualization expert Marc Staimer and VergeIO’s Chief Marketing Officer George Crump.

This webinar will provide an in-depth comparison of VMware vSAN, Nutanix AOS Storage, and VergeIO VergeFS, helping IT teams make informed decisions on cost, performance, and data resiliency.

Webinar Details

📅 Date: February 19, 2024
⏰ Time: 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT
📧 Register: No forms, just reply to this email with “Yes”

🔗 Learn More and Register

About Lancaster Central School District

Lancaster Central School District serves the Lancaster, NY community, providing innovative educational programs and advanced technology solutions to enhance student learning. The district’s commitment to technology modernization ensures a reliable and efficient IT infrastructure that supports students, educators, and administrators.

About VergeIO

VergeIO is the future of virtualization and the leading VMware alternative. Unlike traditional hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), VergeIO’s ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI) collapses the virtualization, storage, and networking stack into an integrated data center operating environment, VergeOS. Its efficiency enables greater workload density using existing hardware while improving data resiliency. The result is dramatically lower costs, improved availability, and simplified IT operations.

For more information, visit www.verge.io.

Media Contact

Judy Smith, JPR Communications
📧 [email protected]
📞 818-522-9673

Filed Under: Press Release Tagged With: , , ,

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When evaluating the data protection capabilities of a vSAN alternative, understanding vSAN snapshots is as crucial as ensuring that it offers high performance and scalability. Although many vSAN solutions provide granular protection and recovery options, the ability to recover entire environments in one step—macro recovery—is equally significant. Without it, IT teams may struggle with hundreds of individual VM recoveries, resulting in excessive downtime and operational disruption.

Understanding vSAN Snapshot Limitations

The first step in understanding vSAN snapshots is learning what level of granularity they provide. Most vSAN platforms, such as VMware vSAN and Nutanix AOS Storage, operate at the virtual machine (VM) level concerning snapshots. In these environments, snapshots are generally managed per VM, allowing for the restoration of individual VMs and potentially even files when necessary.

Granular recovery is an essential operational feature—IT teams require the capability to recover a single deleted file or restore an application VM that was accidentally corrupted. However, when disaster strikes on a larger scale, such as:

  • A ransomware attack that encrypts workloads or dozens of VMs
  • A storage system failure affecting multiple VMs
  • A major misconfiguration or corruption event

IT teams must recover individual VMs and entire business units, departments, or data center environments. Unfortunately, neither VMware vSAN nor Nutanix AOS Storage offers macro recovery capabilities, forcing IT administrators to restore each VM individually, significantly extending downtime.

The granular structure of many vSAN alternative snapshots complicates protecting the entire environment. Although VMs can typically be grouped by “tag” for protection, the underlying software continues to operate per VM. It must manage dozens or even hundreds of individual snapshots per snapshot interval in the background.

VM-only granularity also makes it challenging to achieve consistent states across environments, not only among VMs but also in infrastructure-wide settings such as networking and other configurations. If these settings fall out of sync or go unrecorded, recovery becomes more challenging and prolongs the time needed to return to normal operations.

Lastly, VM-only granularity increases the load on metadata. Because executing a snapshot of a workload may lead to dozens of managed instances, metadata management becomes complex and bloated. This complexity is why most vSAN solutions limit the number of active snapshots per VM.

Understanding vSAN Snapshots Macro Protection Capabilities

Macro recovery allows IT teams to restore entire groups of workloads at once—whether it’s a collection of business units, dozens of branch offices, or a multi-tenant environment. Protecting and recovering these entities in a single movement is essential because it provides:

  1. Faster recovery from large-scale failures – Instead of recovering hundreds of VMs manually, macro recovery restores an entire encapsulated environment, including environmental settings, in one data-consistent step, significantly reducing downtime.
  2. Streamlined Metadata Management – Since one snapshot can now represent a dozen, a hundred, or even a thousand VMs, metadata is much less burdensome on the operating environment. Macro snapshots enable IT to execute snapshots almost continuously without any impact on performance.
  3. Stronger ransomware protection – Cyberattacks don’t just target single VMs; they encrypt entire workloads. Macro recovery enables point-in-time restoration of entire environments, allowing organizations to roll back to a known good state within minutes.
  4. Multi-tenancy protection – In environments where multiple departments or customers operate on shared infrastructure, macro recovery ensures that a single tenant’s data can be restored without impacting others.
  5. Simplified Site Recovery — Macro data protection and recovery also tackle one of the key challenges organizations encounter during a site disaster: synchronizing infrastructure configuration data, network information, and hypervisor configuration settings with the data being replicated. Without macro protection, the recovery process is manual, hindering the effort and failing to meet recovery time objectives (RTO).

How VergeIO Enables Macro Protection

Understanding vSAN Snapshots

Understanding vSAN snapshots will help you realize the advantages of VergeIO’s approach. Unlike VMware vSAN and Nutanix, VergeIO’s VergeOS includes built-in macro recovery capabilities. With infrastructure-wide and Virtual Data Center (VDC) -level snapshots, IT teams can capture entire environments—not just individual VMs. These snapshots simultaneously capture all metadata and configuration information alongside the data, ensuring consistency. As a result, VergeOS can restore the entire infrastructure or a complete workload in a single operation.

Granularity isn’t sacrificed for VergeOS’s macro recoverability. IT can drill into an instance-wide or VDC snapshot and extract an individual VM for recovery. Individual VM snapshots can be mounted as drives to the production version of the VM, enabling single-file recovery simply by copying data between drives.

At the same time, VergeOS can snapshot at the VM level, but with VergeOS, VM-level snapshots are the exception, not the rule. A VM-level snapshot can be executed for special situations where a VM needs extra protection or longer retention times.

Understanding vSAN Snapshots

VergeFS snapshots are remarkably efficient, allowing frequent snapshots without compromising performance. High frequency without any performance impact ensures that organizations can always revert to a recent, clean state, whether recovering from a ransomware attack, a catastrophic failure, or retrieving a document that a user accidentally overwrote just 15 minutes prior.

Get Macro Protection, Move Beyond VM-Only Granularity

Granular recovery is essential, but macro recovery is a powerful complement when minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity. If you’re evaluating vSAN alternatives, ensure the solutions you consider can restore entire environments quickly and efficiently—not just individual files or VMs. Check out this VMware Alternative data protection checklist.

Understanding vSAN Snapshots: Free Expert Webinar

For IT professionals encountering similar challenges, VergeIO is hosting a live webinar with storage and virtualization expert Marc Staimer and VergeIO’s Chief Marketing Officer, George Crump.

This webinar will comprehensively compare VMware vSAN, Nutanix AOS Storage, and VergeIO VergeFS, assisting IT teams in making informed decisions regarding cost, performance, and data resilience.

Webinar Details

📅 Date: February 19, 2024
⏰ Time: 1:00 PM ET / 10:00 AM PT

🔗 Learn More & Register

Filed Under: Protection Tagged With: , , ,

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A double-protected VMware alternative allows organizations to lower licensing expenses and enhance their data resilience. With the rise of infrastructure threats and the need for continuity of operations, IT should leverage this infrastructure shift to boost its recovery capabilities from accidental file deletions, server or drive failures, site disasters, and long-term data retention needs.

A robust VMware alternative must provide two layers of protection: real-time infrastructure resilience and long-term data protection. VergeIO and Storware work together to create a double-protected solution, combining real-time safeguards like ioGuardian, ioClone (snapshots), and ioReplicate with long-term retention and archival capabilities provided by Storware Backup and Recovery.

This approach delivers the strongest data protection strategy and allows IT teams to leverage existing server and backup storage hardware, reducing costs and eliminating the need for rip-and-replace upgrades.

First Layer of Protection: Built-in Infrastructure Resiliency

Many VMware alternatives rely heavily on third-party backup solutions for protection, leaving gaps in immediate recovery and real-time failure resilience. A double-protected VMware alternative must first integrate infrastructure-native data protection that ensures data availability without relying on backups for everyday failures.

ioGuardian: Continuous Failure Detection and Recovery

The foundation of VergeIO’s built-in resiliency is ioGuardian, which proactively monitors infrastructure health and automatically reroutes workloads in the event of drive or node failures. Unlike traditional instant-recovery solutions that require IT intervention, ioGuardian provides real-time, automated protection that keeps applications running without delays or downtime. It also protects against multiple simultaneous drive failures, ensuring data remains accessible even in worst-case scenarios.

ioClone: Instant, Space-Efficient Snapshots

Snapshots are a critical component of an effective data resilience strategy, but most legacy HCI and VMware solutions create performance bottlenecks when snapshots accumulate. VergeIO’s ioClone snapshots eliminate this issue by providing instant, space-efficient, performance-neutral snapshots that IT can use to recover from accidental deletions and system corruption quickly. Snapshots can even be used to recover from ransomware attacks because they are read-only from inception.

ioReplicate: Multi-Site Data Resiliency

VergeIO offers ioReplicate, an efficient, WAN-optimized replication engine that enables real-time or scheduled replication to offsite locations for organizations needing geo-redundancy. This ensures that even in the event of a primary site failure, IT teams can rapidly failover and restore operations from a secondary location.

Global Inline Deduplication

VergeOS features integrated global inline deduplication, the foundation for both ioClone and ioReplicate. This technology decreases storage consumption by ensuring that unique data blocks are written, greatly enhancing efficiency. Removing redundant data globally improves storage performance and maximizes available capacity, making snapshots and replication operations even more cost-effective.

Second Layer of Protection: Long-Term Data Retention

A double-protected VMware alternative requires more than built-in resiliency and data availability in real-time. IT teams also need a long-term data protection strategy to defend against data corruption, cyber threats, and to meet compliance requirements.

Storware Backup and Recovery: Deep Integration with VergeIO

Storware extends VergeIO’s protection by offering long-term backup retention, compliance archiving, and multi-destination backup support, allowing organizations to meet regulatory and business continuity requirements. Unlike traditional backup solutions, Storware is directly integrated into VergeOS, enabling seamless backup of ioClone snapshots and leveraging VergeIO’s changed block tracking (CBT) for faster, storage-efficient backups.

To learn more about VergeIO’s and Storware’s Double Protection and to see it in action, watch our on-demand webinar, “Exit VMware, Retain Server and Backup Hardware.”

Use Existing Server and Backup Storage Hardware

VergeOS enhances flexibility by supporting a broad range of existing server hardware. With its intelligent resource allocation and ability to run on nearly any x86 hardware purchased in the last six years, IT teams can continue using their current infrastructure instead of refreshing everything simultaneously.

One of the most costly aspects of transitioning off of VMware is replacing backup infrastructure due to compatibility limitations with new platforms. Storware removes this concern by supporting a wide range of backup storage hardware, including:

  • Existing NAS/SAN backup storage
  • Object storage (on-prem and cloud-based)
  • Backup appliances from vendors like Rubrik, ExaGrid, and Dell EMC

Storware: Keep Your Existing Backup Storage

Storware enables IT teams to continue using their existing backup storage infrastructure, eliminating the need to purchase new backup appliances. Whether organizations rely on on-premises storage or cloud-based repositories, Storware provides seamless backup and archival capabilities. This flexibility helps businesses reduce costs while ensuring backup operations remain efficient and secure.

ioOptimize: Extending Hardware Lifespan

VergeOS includes ioOptimize, a technology designed to maximize the efficiency of existing hardware. By intelligently distributing workloads, optimizing storage, and reducing system overhead, ioOptimize allows organizations to extend the life of their current infrastructure while also improving performance. IT teams can repurpose aging servers and storage systems rather than retiring them early, ultimately reducing costs and making infrastructure refresh cycles more flexible.

The Most Data-Resilient VMware Alternative

VergeIO believes that data protection and resiliency is a shared responsibility. The combination of VergeIO and Storware creates the most resilient VMware alternative, delivering:

  • Real-time failure detection and recovery with ioGuardian
  • Instant, space-efficient snapshots with ioClone
  • Multi-site data replication with ioReplicate
  • Fast, storage-efficient backups with Storware’s CBT integration
  • Long-term retention and archival capabilities using existing backup storage hardware
  • Extended server lifecycle with ioOptimize

With VergeIO’s built-in resilience and Storware’s long-term data protection, IT teams can confidently transition from VMware without sacrificing security, availability, or infrastructure flexibility.

Conclusion

A VMware exit should not come at the cost of data protection or hardware flexibility. VergeIO and Storware provide a double-protected VMware alternative that delivers real-time resilience and long-term security, ensuring IT teams reduce costs, enhance uptime, and retain control over their infrastructure.

Organizations looking to exit VMware now have a cost-effective, highly available, and deeply resilient alternative that protects both today and into the future.

Filed Under: Protection Tagged With: , , ,

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For Immediate Release

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Tuesday, January 7th — VergeIO, a leader in ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI), is proud to announce that InterBel Telephone, a trusted telecommunications provider in northwest Montana, has successfully modernized its IT infrastructure with VergeIO’s groundbreaking platform. This transformative upgrade streamlined operations and came in significantly under budget, saving nearly 45% compared to revised projections.

Faced with aging infrastructure and skyrocketing software licensing fees, InterBel sought a flexible, cost-effective solution to replace its Cisco UCS and NetApp environment. With hardware reaching end-of-life and escalating costs from traditional virtualization platforms such as VMware, the telecom provider needed a modern solution to ensure reliable, efficient customer service.

Tom Rasmussen, Manager of Information Technology at InterBel Telephone, explained, “The Broadcom acquisition of VMware hit us hard, with licensing costs jumping by 30%. It was a punch in the gut. VergeIO stood out with its simplicity, flexibility, and ability to run on the hardware we already trusted.”

The project was built on Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 servers, leveraging VergeIO’s VergeOS platform—a powerful ultraconverged infrastructure solution—for an all-flash production environment. Another node was configured using VergeIO’s ioGuardian feature for disaster recovery, providing a robust backup and failover solution that can mix SSD and hard disk drives seamlessly. This configuration maximized performance while ensuring scalability and cost-efficiency for the future.

Rasmussen highlighted the straightforward implementation process: “VergeIO was like reading an open book. It took under two hours to deploy in our lab, and adding nodes was seamless. Compared to the complexity of Cisco UCS and NetApp, VergeIO made the process remarkably simple.”

The VergeIO deployment delivered immediate benefits, including:

  • Cost Savings: Instead of exceeding their budget by 30% with VMware, InterBel completed the project using VergeIO at just 28% of their original budget—achieving an impressive 45% savings compared to VMware.
  • Performance Improvements: An all-flash environment enhanced speed and reliability beyond what the legacy systems could offer.
  • Streamlined Management: A single-pane-of-glass interface simplified operations for InterBel’s one-person IT team.
  • Scalability: VergeOS allowed the addition of compute-only nodes and flexible storage options for future growth.

Yan Ness, CEO of VergeIO, commented, “We are thrilled to support InterBel in achieving their infrastructure goals. Our ultraconverged platform is designed to simplify IT operations and deliver exceptional value, enabling organizations like InterBel to focus on delivering superior services to their customers.”

Today, InterBel is poised for continued growth and operational excellence. VergeIO’s UCI ensures that their IT environment remains scalable, cost-effective, and ready to meet the evolving demands of their telecom services.

About VergeIO

VergeIO delivers the future of virtualization via an ultraconverged infrastructure (UCI) solution that collapses the entire IT stack—virtualization, storage, and networking—into a single platform, VergeOS. This approach improves efficiency, enhances data resiliency, and reduces costs while simplifying IT operations. VergeIO empowers organizations to achieve unmatched scalability and performance.

About InterBel Telephone

Founded in 1962, InterBel Telephone is a telecommunications cooperative dedicated to providing advanced connectivity solutions to the communities of northwest Montana. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and a community-focused approach, InterBel continues to deliver high-quality service and innovative solutions to its customers.

Media Contact

Judy Smith
JPR
[email protected]
818-522-9673

For more information about VergeIO and its solutions, visit www.verge.io.
For more information about InterBel Telephone, visit www.interbel.com.

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