VMware

Once IT decides to make the switch, it must answer five VMware migration questions before completing the transition. Of course, before you even get to migration, you need to make sure that your potential new hypervisor will help you reduce costs both upfront and long-term. It also should deliver improved data protection and resiliency.

Assuming you’ve found a product that makes migration worthwhile, making sure you understand how your potential new hypervisor will address the five VMware migration questions is critical:

1. How is the migration service delivered?
2. How much downtime is involved?
3. Does migrating require new hardware?
4. Can I migrate gradually?
5. What is the process for migration?

1. How is VMware Migration Delivered?

The first of the five VMware migration questions focuses on how integrated migration is into the alternative vendor’s solution. Different VMware alternative vendors will use different approaches to deliver their VMware migration capabilities. For some vendors, it is a manual export of the VMware Virtual Machines (VM) and then a manual import of the VMs into their environment. The manual process may cause significant outages as you transfer the VMs between environments. Other vendors use a third-party utility to access vCenter, pull all the VMs over, and then convert them to run within their hypervisor. This method also leads to outages as the migration occurs and often forces an all-at-once cut-over.

In both cases, these migrations are very time-consuming. We’ve seen reports of 30 minutes per VM, which in even a smaller environment of a few dozen VMs is days of copying data before you can begin testing. It is critical to remember that there is a difference between converting a few VMs in a lab environment and rolling the migration service out in production.

VergeOS Integrated Migration

VergeOS’ ioMigrate function is integrated directly into VergeOS. It then connects directly to vCenter and presents a list of VMware VMs for you to migrate. The transfer to VergeOS is fast; we typically show customers VMware to VergeOS migrations in real time during our demonstrations. During those demonstrations we show the migration and import of five VMware VMs in less than 15 seconds. Also, ioMigrate is not limited to a single VM at a time. You can migrate all of your VMs at once if you need to.

2. How Much Downtime is Involved for a VMware Migration?

The next of the five VMware migration questions to answer concerns downtime. Obviously, you want as little downtime as possible. Obviously, the transfer time mentioned in question one impacts downtime. If it takes 30 minutes to transfer a VM to the new hypervisor, that effectively means the VM has to be “off” for the complete transfer while the VM is being converted and restarted on the new hypervisor. For most alternative solutions, this means that the migration to the new hypervisor is something that has to be done over multiple weekends, which means you have to be running parallel systems for a longer time than you might have hoped.

VergeOS Minimizes Migration Downtime

VergeOS ioMigrate provides very fast transfers of VMware VMs into our environment, but we don’t convert them to VergeOS VMs until you are ready to test them. ioMigrate also uses change block tracking (CBT) to update these VM copies continuously throughout the day. In this demonstration video, you’ll see that we update them every hour. These CBT transfers are very fast regardless of the size of the original VM.

With ioMigrate, when you are ready to execute the conversion, you will likely do one more quick CBT backup to ensure you have the latest version of the VM. Then you’ll click import, answer a few questions, and in seconds, the VM will boot under VergeOS. Downtime with VergeOS is the time it takes to execute the last CBT backup and to start the VM under VergeOS which equates to a few minutes.

3. Does the VMware Migration Require New Hardware?

The answer to the third of the five VMware migration questions may not be driven by a migration activity. Instead, it may be driven by a business methodology. Many VMware alternatives require that you buy either new hardware from them, or adhere to a very strict certified vendor list, which effectively requires you to buy new hardware.

If your VMware alternative is able to run on your hardware, the capabilities of the hypervisor’s migration function also impact whether or not you still have to buy new hardware. Most in-place migrations will require that you “clear” one of your existing servers, likely running VMware, to accept the new hypervisor. That is to be expected but doing so means that you are limited on the amount of available compute to run production while you are converting. You are also exposing yourself to an outage because you’ve lowered your level of redundancy. If it takes hours or days, you may decide it is more practical to buy at least one new server to start the process with less pressure.

Schedule a quick 15-minute chat with one of our technical experts who can create a custom, step-by-step VMware Exit strategy for your organization.

VergeOS Migration without New Hardware

ioMigrate’s ability to rapidly copy multiple VMs simultaneously and to rapidly update those VMs via CBT means customers can facilitate a safe migration without purchasing additional hardware. As mentioned above, you “clear” one of the servers to receive VergeOS, but thanks to the speed of transfer, updates, and conversions, these customers can bring the VergeIO VMs online very quickly. Plus, VergeOS, for the time you specify, can retain the final VMware image in case something goes wrong in the testing and conversion process. Another advantage is that the efficiency of VergeOS breathes new life into your existing hardware.

4. Can VMware Migration Occur Gradually?

The fourth of the five VMware migration questions focuses on the pace of migration. VMware is infrastructure, and most customers, for good reason, want to take the migration process gradually. The problem is that most migrations are an all-or-nothing proposition. As a result, many customers will take the “safer” route and buy a whole new stack of hardware so they can migrate at a more comfortable pace.

VergeOS, Migrate at Your Pace, Fast or Slow

VergeOS enables your migration to be at the pace you are most comfortable with. ioMigrate can position data for you very quickly and keep it up to date. Many customers only want to migrate a few VMs at a time and test the migrated VMs extensively prior to moving them into production. Using the ioMigrate scheduling function, IT can follow this process of testing a few VMs at a time under VergeOS, while the rest of their VMware environment is constantly being updated behind the scenes with CBT transfers.

5. What’s The VMware Migration Process?

The final of the five VMware migration questions gets into the specific details. With other migration functions, the process is a serial, one-at-a-time VM transfer which itself is very slow. It forces customers to take more of an all-at-once approach to conversion, which leads to multiple long weekends to complete the task.

VergeOS’ VMware Migration Process

As mentioned above, the typical process is to “clear” one of your VMware servers by migrating your VMware VMs to other VMware hosts. Then, on the “cleared” server, remove VMware from it and install VergeOS. Optionally, if you have enough capacity on the first VergeOS server use ioMigrate to migrate ALL the VMware virtual machines over. Essentially you are doing a backup of your VMware environment. Then, using ioMigrate, set up a schedule to keep all these VMs up to date using frequent CBT backups.

With all the VMware VMs captured, you can now import your first group of VMs into VergeOS using the process mentioned above and demonstrated in this video. First, shut down your first set of VMware VMs, do one final CBT backup, and import the VMs into VergeOS. Test them to ensure everything is working as expected and make them available to users. Given VergeOS’s resource efficiency, you should be able to put enough VMs into production on the VergeOS host to “clear” another VMware host and convert it to VergeOS. You’ll repeat this process by importing more VMs into VergeOS, which clears additional VMware hosts, which are then re-imaged with VergeOS and integrated into the VergeIO instance.

With the five VMware migration questions resolved, you’ll have everything converted, and you’ll be ready to enjoy all the capabilities of VergeOS, like our recently announced ioGuardian, which maintains application availability even during multiple drive or server failures. Join us tomorrow for a live webinar and demonstration unveiling ioGuardian. After all you should get more from your VMware alternative than just a better price.

Despite its attractive price point, the true cost of VMware Essentials is a significant issue for IT professionals managing small to mid-sized data centers. It’s critical that IT professionals understand the cost of overcoming the restrictions that VMware places on the product. These limitations may be acceptable for home labs, but the limitations of VMware Essentials force organizations to either compromise on application and data availability or invest in other products as stop-gap measures to overcome Essentials’ shortcomings.

Join us this week for our live webinar “Is There an Alternative for VMware Essentials?”

Desecting VMware Essentials

VMware Essentials comes in three versions: Essentials, Essentials Plus, and HCI Kit Essentials. While VMware Essentials is affordable, it can’t do much. Ironically, it lacks “essential” capabilities like vMotion, cross-switch vMotion, high availability, vSphere, and replication. It may be suitable for home labs, but since most home labs aim to practice and test operations in a data center, it still seems to miss the mark.

VMware Essentials Plus

Essentials Plus is more ready for the organization. However, the cost increases considerably to ~$7,700 for a three-year license. That license will support up to three physical servers and six CPUs. In other words, it is a three-node cluster with no more than two processors per node. If one of your servers has over 32 cores, you must allocate two licenses to that effort.

The overhead of VMware is also an issue, especially in small- to mid-sized data centers, and factors into the true cost of VMware Essentials. The customer must also go through the extra steps of setting up and configuring vCenter, which adds to the overhead requirements. In most cases, 20%+ of available CPU resources are consumed before a single customer virtual machine (VM) is created. As a result, the true cost of VMware Essentials requires that customers account for overbuying on their servers to compensate for this unnecessary overhead.

While VMware Essentials Plus adds the items missing features from “standard” Essentials, it still lacks an actual storage software capability, which most of these formally missing features require to operate. This missing storage service is harrowing for small to medium-sized data centers since they are the organizations that could benefit the most from the cost savings of server-based shared storage. However, its shortcoming means that IT must acquire a shared storage solution while paying substantially more for the Essentials Plus license to leverage capabilities like live VM migration and high availability.

Because of tight budgets, IT professionals in small to medium-sized data centers often buy entry-level SANs or NAS solutions that lack robust data protection and availability features. Even these so-called entry-level SAN or NAS solutions are significantly more expensive than adequately implemented server-based shared storage.

Finally, there is the cost of data protection, which is anemic with VMware Essentials Plus but all the more vital because of the limitations of entry-level storage systems. VMware’s documentation clearly says that their snapshot technology should not be used for data protection, and their protection from server or drive failure is redundant at best. As a result, customers must also invest in backup software and backup storage, further compounding the cost of VMware Essentials Plus.

While VMware Essentials seems to have the right boxes checked, the limitations hidden behind those boxes are significant. Customers must overcome these shortcomings by paying for more powerful servers, RAM, shared storage, and a robust data protection solution. Not only do all these additional components increase costs, but they also increase complexity as the add point of management, further stretching the already stretched-thin IT staff.

If you hit the per node or CPU limitations of VMware Essentials, you must go through what can be best described as a very confusing upgrade process, which seems to vary depending on whom you speak to at VMware. At a minimum, you will need a new vSphere license that supports more than three physical servers, and if you want deduplication, encryption, or stretched cluster support, you will need to upgrade/buy vSAN.

In summary, VMware Essentials Plus, although offering enhanced features, incurs significant hidden costs and operational complexities. Its overhead necessitates expensive server hardware. Additionally, the lack of integrated storage software requires further investment in external storage solutions. These factors and inadequate data protection features compel additional spending on backup systems. When expanding beyond fundamental limitations, the upgrade process is confusing and costly, involving extra licensing for expanded capabilities. This combination of high costs and operational challenges makes VMware Essentials Plus particularly burdensome for its intended market: small to medium-sized data centers with limited budgets and resources.

VMware Essentials Minus?

Any discussion about the the true cost of VMware Essentials must acknowledge that the bundle’s future may be very much in jeopardy because of the completion of Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. Broadcom has publically stated that it will focus on its largest 600 customers.

If you are an Essentials customer, you must assume that its special pricing may soon increase or the bundle may even be removed.

Compare The True Cost of VMware Essentials to VergeOS SDC

VergeIO recently announced the VergeOS Small Data Center (SDC) edition, specifically designed to simplify VMware Essentials customers’ lives. Because VergeOS is a single data center operating environment that cohesively integrates networking, virtualization, and storage services into a single software package, VergeOS includes all the capabilities of VergeOS Enterprise. With IOmigrate, VMware VMs can seamlessly be converted to VergeOS VMs. The edition’s only limitation is the number of nodes (4) you can scale to before purchasing the Enterprise license, which can scale to hundreds of nodes.

It is targeted exclusively at Essentials customers, but if you operate a small to mid-sized data center and have had to move beyond VMware Essentials to access some of the above missing features, then more than likely, you will still save about 50% in licensing costs. Like other VergeOS Editions, SDC is licensed by the physical server. It doesn’t matter how many CPUs or cores you have or your required storage capacity. One license per server. Period.

More than a Low Price

VergeOS SDC is more than just a low-cost alternative to VMware Essentials; it provides all the above-mentioned “essential” capabilities and more. Unlike the the true cost of VMware Essentials which must be carefully uncovered, VergeOS SDC includes all of the “essentials” features and more. With VergeOS SDC, you get live VM migration, cross-switch vMotion, high availability, vSphere, and replication.

You also get a full complement of storage services that exceed the vSAN standard edition, eliminating the need for external shared storage. Server class 15.3TB NVMe SSDs are available for less than $1,500 today. You can purchase 183TBs of very high-performance flash for less than $18,000. Remember, because the server licenses VergeOS, there is no additional charge for the storage capacity. Also included is VergeOS global inline data deduplication, which should make 183TBs of capacity act more like 700TBs, depending on your dataset.

Lowering Total Cost of Infrastructure Ownership

VergeOS can reduce the Total Cost of Infrastructure Ownership in additional ways. First, the entire environment provides complete high availability. Virtual machines are automatically moved to other nodes in the VergeOS instance if a node fails. Our Virtual Data Center technology makes disaster recovery and patch application simple.

Our snapshots act like clones, making them more suitable for data protection and ransomware resiliency. Snapshots can be taken quickly and frequently and are immutable by default. While most other data protection solutions struggle with weeks of recovery post-ransomware-attack, IOfortify, our ransomware notification alerting system, reduces recovery times to less than 30 minutes. Schedule a 22-minute whiteboard session to dive deep into VergeOS’ data protection and data resiliency capabilities to learn how to eliminate or reduce your backup licensing and storage costs.

VergeOS also includes complete Layer 2 and 3 networking services, which means that when you are ready, you can eliminate the expense of dedicated appliances acting as firewalls, VPNs, etc… Watch this video to learn more about VergeOS’ networking capabilities

VergeOS’ integration of network, virtualization, and storage services into a cohesive software package simplifies operations and dramatically improves hardware efficiencies. Most of our customers report that they have migrated from VMware to VergeOS and have 40% or more computing resources available to them than before. As a result, they can virtualize more workloads and reduce or delay future orders.

Conclusion

VMware Essentials, with its various versions, offers a range of options for small to medium-sized data centers. However, each version comes with significant limitations and escalating costs. The Essentials version is too basic, lacking “essential” capabilities for serious data center operations. Essentials Plus offers more features but still lacks comprehensive storage solutions. The seldom mentioned HCI Kit version adds vSAN, but it is expensive, lacks deduplication, and retains node limitations. Additionally, the future of the entire VMware Essentials product line is uncertain due to Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware.

By comparison, VergeIO’s VergeOS Small Data Center (SDC) edition is a robust alternative for VMware Essentials customers. It provides:

• Seamless Migration
• Integrates networking, virtualization, and storage services into a single software package,
• Offers all the capabilities of VergeOS Enterprise Edition, limited only by scalability to four node.

VergeOS SDC is cost-effective, not only in terms of licensing but also in reducing the Total Cost of Infrastructure Ownership. It includes advanced features like live VM migration, high availability, and efficient storage services with global inline data deduplication. Moreover, VergeOS enhances data protection, disaster recovery, and network services, leading to greater hardware efficiency and further reduced costs.

Overall, for small to medium-sized data centers, especially those currently using VMware Essentials, VergeOS SDC emerges as the choice. It offers a more integrated, efficient, and cost-effective solution compared to the segmented and increasingly expensive options provided by VMware Essentials.

The recent acquisition of VMware by Broadcom and the cold reality of this week’s layoffs make developing a VMware exit plan the new top priority for IT professionals. However, transitioning to a new virtualization platform can be a daunting task. With careful planning and execution and working with vendors with a long track record of helping organizations make this transition, the risks of conversion can be minimized.

A VMware Exit Migration Plan

Below is a quick overview of how to migrate from VMware to an alternative virtualization platform. For a more detailed plan, please download our definitive guide to exiting VMware, “A Step-By-Step VMware Migration Process.”

1. Evaluate Alternatives: The first step in developing a VMware exit plan is to research the business and technological aspects of potential alternatives. Consider licensing models. Does the vendor’s practice of charging by CPU, core, or storage capacity punish you for using advanced hardware? Also, make sure you have at least feature parity in terms of performance, data protection, and resilience. Read our article “Comparing VMware to VergeOS,” to learn how VergeOS compares to VMware.
2. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Undertake a thorough analysis of costs versus benefits, including licensing, maintenance, operational costs, and potential savings. Explore the potential to eliminate other software applications like backup, replication, and ransomware recovery. At a minimum, you should be looking for a 50% savings on licensing, decreasing the need for future hardware purchases and simplifying operations. Read our article “VMware Alternative Cost-Benefit Analysis,” to learn how VergeOS can reduce infrastructure costs now and in the future.
3. Plan the Migration: Another imporant aspect of developing a VMware exit plan is creating a detailed migration plan encompassing timelines, resources, risk management, and stakeholder involvement. You are busy. Is the vendor willing to provide assistance and manage the migration for you? To watch a migration in real-time, watch our on-demand webinar.
4. Prepare the Infrastructure: Ensure hardware and networking compatibility with the new software. Does the vendor have a strict hardware compatibility list that will force you to buy new hardware instead of leveraging your current investment? VergeOS doesn’t require new hardware, or even a restrictive hardware compatability list (HCL). Instead, we have a modest set of minimum requirements.
5. Conduct Training: Training the IT staff on the new software and updating operational documentation is also a key step in developing a VMware exit plan. How long will it take to learn the new software and be comfortable performing day-to-day operations? Want to see how easy it is to learn VergeOS? Register for a virtual self-guided test drive.
6. Test Migration Process: Start with a pilot migration and monitor performance. Can you migrate everything and keep the migrated virtual machines (VM) in sync as you start a pilot test of a few VMs? Continuously updating migration targets enables you to expand the test environment as you verify compatibility.
7. Test Failure Scenarios: An often overlooked part of developing a VMware exit plan is making sure, as part of the testing, you test failure conditions, including failed network connections, servers, and storage media. Can the alternative self-heal? Does it provide adequate, built-in, data protection and recovery capabilities?
8. Full-Scale Migration: A full-scale migration shouldn’t be necessary if the alternative can continually update migrated VMs from the VMware environment. Migration should be gradual and risk-free, testing one step at a time.
9. Post-Migration Testing: Post-migration testing should also be unnecessary if the solution enables the gradual migration process as described in steps 6 and 7. You will want to confirm functionality and performance under full load in the new environment. A more efficient alternative should free up resources and enable you to cancel your next hardware refresh.
10. Transition Support and Maintenance: Establish new support arrangements and maintenance procedures. Make sure the vendor is able to provide 24/7 support and allows for human-to-human communication.
11. Decommission Old Environment: Decommission VMware and cancel any related licenses or contracts. The moment you’ve been waiting for, lower those licensing costs and free yourself from the acquisition chaos. You should save 50% or more on licensing and increase your total return on investment (ROI) by as much as 80% thanks to more efficient resource utilization.
12. Review and Optimize: Conduct a post-migration review and continually monitor for optimization opportunities. A robust infrastructure solution should eliminate the need for most of the VMware ecosystem. Gradually replace these components to further improve ROI.
13. Document and Communicate Changes: The final piece of developing a VMware exit plan is to update all documentation and inform impacted parties. Users should see no change in day-to-day, except for performance improvements and better data protection.

Conclusion

The acquisition of VMware by Broadcom and the resulting organizational changes have brought to the forefront the necessity for IT professionals to develop a comprehensive VMware exit plan. Transitioning to a new virtualization platform can be streamlined with planning, analysis, and collaboration with experienced vendors.

The outlined steps, ranging from evaluating alternatives to documenting and communicating changes, provide a structured pathway for a smooth transition. By leveraging platforms like VergeOS, organizations can look forward to significant cost savings, enhanced performance, and simplified operations. Remember, the ultimate goal is not just to replace VMware, but to elevate your organization’s virtualization capabilities to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness.

Free, Personalized VMware Migration Strategy

Schedule a 15-minute call with one of our experts so we can capture the information we need to create a free, customized VMware Exit plan for your organization.

You’ll get a professional report detailing a customized process by which you can exit VMware. It will also provide a cost-benefit analysis showing how much you can reduce upfront and long-term data center costs by exiting VMware.

Do you think the ensuing chaos of Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware is overrated? Check out this article.