In our previous blogs, we talked about the “why” and the “who” of moving off VMware. Now, it’s time to dive into the “what.” This conversation largely revolves around what products you’ll need to replace VMware’s full ecosystem, and it’s a complicated question. Depending on what parts of VMware you’re using, you may not need any products outside your hypervisor, or you may need dozens.
The VMware Ecosystem
Over the years, VMware has expanded from just a Hypervisor (ESXi) and Management (vCenter) to, essentially, a full-stack vendor. Here’s a quick rundown of their ecosystem:
Horizon: Desktop virtualization
NSX: Network security and further network virtualization
vSAN: Storage aggregation and resiliency
Aria/Ops Manager: Monitoring and day-to-day management automation of the VMware ecosystem
Tanzu: Kubernetes management
Outside of those pieces, you need a solution to actually back up everything that’s running on it, and maybe even a monitoring tool depending on your current setup.
On-Premises Alternatives
Excluding the cloud hyperscalers, there’s unfortunately only one company that comes close to offering a full stack on premises, and that’s Microsoft. Their combination of Hyper-V, the System Center Suite, and Storage Spaces Direct gets you close to VMware’s level of completeness. However, this setup requires a LOT of pieces, parts, and integrations to work. Even after all that, many of the tools you end up with are inferior to what you used with VMware.
If you’re okay with paying monthly for Azure Stack Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), you can get a cohesive solution. This works well if your needs are large enough to accommodate a well-sized Azure Stack HCI, and you’re fine with paying monthly for something you initially paid upfront for… and you like the way Azure does everything.
Third-Party and Additional Tools
If you’re considering alternatives to Microsoft, you’re going to need some supporting apps. Many companies have developed integrations with VMware over the years, but support for other platforms can vary. Here are some big names and their specific examples:
Veeam: Provides native backups for VMware, Hyper-V, RHEL, Oracle KVM, and Nutanix (with Proxmox coming soon), but doesn’t support Xenserver or some other KVM derivatives.
SolarWinds: Has a monitoring plugin for VMware, Hyper-V, and Nutanix, but not for anyone else natively.
ControlUp: Supports Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft.
Building Your New Product Suite
Part of what you’ll have to do when looking to move off VMware is look at everything in your environment that touches VMware currently and figure out what a new product suite might look like. Are native tools from these vendors enough, or do you need to add third-party tools to give you a complete solution? How much are all of those third-party tools going to cost, and do they give you feature parity from what you currently have?
Here are a few simple steps you can take to get a well-rounded idea of what you’ll need:
- Inventory Your Current Tools: List all the tools and applications interacting with VMware.
- Evaluate Native Tools: Determine if the native tools from alternative vendors are sufficient.
- Identify Gaps: Look for areas where third-party tools are necessary to achieve feature parity.
- Cost Analysis: Calculate the costs of these third-party tools and compare them to your current VMware setup.
- Feature Comparison: Ensure that the new tools provide the same or better functionality than what you currently have.
Moving off VMware involves more than just replacing your hypervisor; it’s about replicating a robust ecosystem with equivalent or better functionality. Whether you’re looking at VMware HCX migration for a seamless transition, moving VMs from VMware to another host, or considering VMware competitors, the key is ensuring you don’t miss out on critical features and performance. Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll discuss the “hows” of VMware migration.
If you’d like more information about the evolving changes coming from VMware and how it may impact your IT infrastructure, please contact us by calling (502) 240-0404 or emailing info@mirazon.com