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Migrating Away from VMWare - A Message for Leadership

August 15, 2024 by
Migrating Away from VMWare - A Message for Leadership
Polo Hurtado

By now you have heard about Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware and how it fundamentally changes licensing and deployment of future workloads. If you haven’t, here’s a great primer that provides a deep-dive into the main changes regarding the end of perpetual licensing and the arrival of the subscription model:

https://dsh.re/428689

Companies of all sizes and industries are looking at alternatives, and the ability to move to a new stack will depend on many variables. 

However, what will be some of the common challenges businesses will face as they undertake a migration away from VMware, to an alternative hypervisor?

1. Compatibility and Integration: Ensuring that the new hypervisor is compatible with existing systems and infrastructure can be challenging. Integrating the new hypervisor with other systems and tools may require additional work, and there may be a learning curve for IT staff to become familiar with the new platform. Think how your automation and provisioning methods will be impacted by the change. In addition, hardware compatibility will need to be studied to ensure the acquisition of new compute nodes isn’t problematic.

2. Data Migration: Migrating virtual machines and their associated data can be complex and time-consuming. Ensuring that all data is successfully transferred without loss or corruption is critical. The process may require downtime or disruptions to service availability, which must be carefully managed. While there are a few somewhat interchangeable VM formats around, there will still be the need to test and verify.

3) Performance and Reliability: Achieving the same level of performance and reliability as the previous system can be challenging. It's important to carefully evaluate the capabilities of the new hypervisor to ensure it meets the organization's needs, including performance, scalability, and security requirements. Testing and validation may be needed to ensure that the new system can handle the workload and deliver the expected level of service. Most hypervisors will share similar performance curves, but the devil will be in the details and further inspection of the workloads to be migrated will be needed. 


Let's talk about pricing


In terms of cost comparison between VMware, -hashtag#HyperV, and hashtag#Nutanix, here's a general breakdown:

VMware vSphere: VMware has the most expensive licensing among the three options, especially for larger deployments. However, its extensive features, mature ecosystem, and proven performance make it a strong choice for enterprises with demanding workloads and high availability requirements. As mentioned before, the big question is how are enterprises adapting to the change in pricing after the acquisition by Broadcom. All perpetual licensing has been abolished for a subscription-based model, and it has become even more cost-ineffective than before.

Microsoft Hyper-V: Hyper-V is included with Windows Server licenses, making it an economical choice for organizations already using Windows Server. However, the total cost of ownership can increase when factoring in features like System Center Virtual Machine Manager for advanced management capabilities.

While this hypervisor can be managed with the built-in Hyper-V Manager MMC plugin, it is a very basic console that doesn’t scale like SCVMM.

So while more than likely you’ll have to license SCVMM separately, the actual cost of the hypervisor is essentially free as part of your Windows Server license.

Nutanix AHV: Nutanix offers a flexible pricing model based on the number of nodes and subscription term. While pricing varies, Nutanix can be less expensive than VMware, especially for smaller deployments. Nutanix’s simplified management and lower hardware requirements can contribute to cost savings over time.

One thing to note, is that as an HCI platform, increasing storage for your workloads is not as simple as provisioning further SAN LUNs: the architecture of Nutanix is designed to take advantage of the nodes’ storage, hence, to add more storage you will need to add additional nodes. While that can be seen as a disadvantage, the truth is that this also provides you with additional compute power, which future-proofs your deployments.

Ultimately, cost is just one factor in choosing a virtualization platform. It’s essential to consider each option’s features, scalability, performance, and compatibility with your specific environment to find the best fit for your needs.

With VMware becoming ultra selective in terms of Partners that are still part of their ecosystem; their subscription-only model, and their hesitation to support medium-sized businesses, the answer is clearer, and it’s not VMware.

What about OpenSource Options

Let's compare and contrast VMware against the two most popular free and open-source alternative hypervisors: KVM and Xen

The more well-known KVM-based hypervisor is Proxmox; XCP-ng does battle with their Xen architecture.

Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE) is an open-source server virtualization platform that simplifies the creation and management of virtual machines and containers. It features a web-based user interface and command-line interface for easy setup and control. You can run LXC container-based as well as full VMs, offering scalability and efficient resource utilization. Proxmox VE provides a cost-effective, flexible solution for virtualization needs.

XCP-ng stands for Xen Cloud Platform – next generation. It is a turnkey distribution of the Xen Project Hypervisor relying mostly on the Xen Hypervisor and the Xen API project (XAPI). The project is a fork of the open source Xen Server project (now Citrix Hypervisor).

XCP-ng features a modern web UI, live migration, and strong security measures. It offers a streamlined virtualization experience compatible with a variety of tools and platforms. Xen Orchestra functions much like vCenter, without the hard-to-swallow pricing!

Here’s a summary of the three hypervisors:

VMware vs. KVM vs. Xen:

1. VMware: A proprietary, full-featured, and widely adopted hypervisor with a mature ecosystem of management tools and integrations.

2. KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine): An open-source, bare-metal hypervisor built into the Linux kernel, offering a flexible, low-cost virtualization solution. It has a smaller footprint but requires more Linux expertise for administration.

3. Xen: Another open-source hypervisor with a strong focus on security and virtualization isolation. It can be more complex to manage than KVM or VMware but offers a robust feature set for virtualization.

Now we will compare the most popular proprietary hypervisors against VMware:

Microsoft HyperV, NutanixAHV, and Citrix

VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer) are all leading proprietary virtualization platforms, offering robust features for enterprise environments. Here's some advantages and disadvantages for each:

VMware vSphere:

Advantages:

- High availability and fault tolerance

- Easy migration of virtual machines (VMs)

- Wide OS and hardware compatibility

- Defacto market leader with broad application support ecosystem

Disadvantages:

- Complex licensing

- Expensive compared to alternatives

- Dismantling of partner program with a narrow focus on the Fortune 100–at the expense of the mid-tier enterprises.

Microsoft Hyper-V:

Advantages:

- Low cost (included in Windows Server licenses)

- Seamless integration with Microsoft products

- Good performance and scalability

Disadvantages:

- Management can be complex

- Less robust fault tolerance features

- Compatibility issues with some guest OSes, namely hashtag#Linux and versions of hashtag#BSD or hashtag#FreeBSD

Nutanix AHV:

Advantages:

- Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI)

- Streamlined management

- High performance and scalability

Disadvantages:

- Limited hardware compatibility

- Less mature than other options

- It’s HCI nature actively does not support SAN as storage pools

Citrix Hypervisor:

Advantages:

- Robust feature set

- Cost-effective

- Strong integration with Citrix products

Disadvantages:

- Limited hardware compatibility

- Steep learning curve

- Older standard which makes it harder to find capable technical human resources for running the hashtag#infrastructure

While each option has its advantages, Microsoft Hyper-V may be the strongest alternative to VMware for many enterprises due to its integration with Windows environments, low cost, and strong performance. However, specific enterprise needs may make another platform a better choice in certain cases.

Virtualiz is here to help you navigate this change to your IT foundation. Book a free consultation to see how we can assist you.



Migrating Away from VMWare - A Message for Leadership
Polo Hurtado August 15, 2024
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