Broadcom’s 2023 acquisition of VMware for US$69bn led to disruptive changes in the virtualisation provider’s pricing.
Key here is a move from perpetual licences to a subscription model. This has left some enterprises facing higher costs, with some considering a move to alternative virtualisation environments.
For those considering that, the challenge is to ensure any migration provides adequate backup and recovery measures for new hypervisors. This is as well as protecting remaining VMware workloads.
VMware: Twist or stick?
The main reason CIOs cite for moving away from VMware is cost, with worries over increasing overheads from the new subscription model prominent. VMware also discontinued its free edition of VMware vSphere ESXi, which was popular with smaller firms.
For enterprises looking to move, VMware alternatives include competing virtualisation technologies, such as Nutanix, Microsoft Hyper-V and Oracle Linux Virtualization. There are also open source options that include Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Linux Kernel-level Virtual Machines (KVM) and Proxmox Virtual Environment.
As yet, there are few signs of a mass exodus, however. One survey, carried out by backup provider Nakivo, suggested a third of its customers planned to move away from VMware to Proxmox. The supplier points to a smaller number of customers moving to Nutanix and Hyper-V.
This suggests a larger percentage of VMware users have either decided to stay with the technology and the new commercial terms, some of which – including simpler storage licensing – can favour some workloads.
“Naturally, the first reaction is to say, ‘Right, I’m going to go somewhere else, I’m going to use somebody else’s technology’,” says Patrick Smith, field chief technology officer for EMEA at Pure Storage.
“And some organisations have fairly rapidly moved off VMware onto other platforms, but they are either small or very agile to be able to do that.”
Other enterprises might be biding their time, not least because moving between hypervisor platforms is complex and carries risk. Nor do the alternatives offer all VMware’s features and functionality – or not in one place, at least.
Backup, recovery and VMware alternatives
If moving workloads from one hypervisor to another is difficult, then ensuring those workloads and data are backed up adds another layer of complexity.
Much will depend on how an enterprise currently protects its systems, including VMware, alternative hypervisors it is considering, and the backup and recovery tools it uses.
For the majority of organisations, it is probable the data protection systems they use will work if they choose to stay with VMware as a major platform or migrate to alternatives Tony Lock, Freeform Dynamics
The good news is the larger backup and disaster recovery suppliers already have support for competing virtualisation platforms. Hyper-V, in particular, is well supported for businesses that also run on Microsoft infrastructure.
At the same time, providers such as Veeam, Rubrik and Nakivo have strengthened support for open source platforms, especially Proxmox.
This raises the prospect of firms being able to continue with their current backup and recovery provider, even if they move to a mixed approach to virtualisation. Alternatively, if their current disaster recovery supplier falls short, there is the chance to move to a toolset that does support a multi-supplier approach.
“For the majority of organisations, it is probable the data protection systems they use will work if they choose to stay with VMware as a major platform or migrate to alternatives,” suggests Tony Lock, principal analyst at Freeform Dynamics. “This is especially likely to be the case if they have a data protection solution that protects a mixed environment.”
Out of the box?
However, even if a data protection or backup and recovery tool supports alternatives to VMware, IT teams should anticipate carrying out configuration and testing before their alternatives go live.
If they do not, there is a risk that by attempting to save money on licensing, they expose the business to risk and additional costs down the line.
Backup is turning out to be a quite a polarising aspect of moving away from VMware Bruce Kornfeld, StorMagic
VMware’s maturity and market share means products such as ESXi and vSAN are well-understood and well-supported by independent software suppliers, integrators and in-house teams. Not all hypervisors enjoy that industry support.
One area where this is apparent is where backup and recovery providers offer “agentless” integration directly with hypervisors. This is not – yet – on offer for all the alternatives, and CIOs might need to consider agent-based backup.
“Backup is turning out to be a quite a polarising aspect of moving away from VMware,” says Bruce Kornfeld, chief product officer at StorMagic, a supplier of hyper-converged storage.
“The leaders in virtualisation have had the attention of the backup software industry over the last 20-plus years, and tight agentless integration directly with their hypervisors is something that many users have come to expect. However, the backup software industry hasn’t had the research and development capacity to work with every hypervisor on the market – there just hasn’t been the return on investment in the past.”
“VMware customers that have made the decision to move away from VMware need to re-address their backup strategy,” he says. “They need to look at using an agent-based approach. This is the way backup has been done for decades and will work with any hypervisor.” This should not, Kornfeld says, come with extra costs.
Firms also need to consider the time and resources they need to set aside for backup and disaster recovery testing, once they have decided to move workloads away from VMware. This includes testing file and virtual machine-based backup routines.
In fact, changing hypervisors can present a good opportunity to review the strength of disaster recovery and backup arrangements across the business. These might not be as robust as CIOs expect.
“It is fair to say that some organisations are not totally happy with their data protection solutions and processes,” says Tony Lock.
“In such circumstances, it is certainly something they will need to look at, but the issue is do they have the resources and budgets to potentially modify two important systems at once? And even if they do, would they be happy that they can manage the risk of change, since any major platform change carries some element of risk?”
It is here where careful supplier evaluation and selection, and potentially bringing in additional supplier or third-party engineering support, should pay for itself.
