VMware: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Navigating the VMware by Broadcom® acquisition

’Should I Stay, or Should I Go’ is more than an iconic 80’s song by the Clash—it’s a pressing question for IT leaders as they navigate the costs and benefits of retaining VMware. While staying with VMware offers stability, proven features, and a robust ecosystem, its rising prices are prompting organizations to seek cost-saving alternatives. 

But exiting could come at a risk. 

While migrating to alternative virtualization solutions may unlock savings and innovation, it might also introduce complexity and potential risks.

Evaluating the pros and cons of staying versus going requires an analysis that includes financial implications, operational impacts, and organizational risk tolerance. 

Start with what you know – and what you don’t 

Before deciding whether to stay or migrate, it’s crucial to conduct a thorough inventory analysis that addresses these four important questions:

• Do we fully understand what we own?
• How much does it truly cost to operate?
• Are we investing in the right technologies for our needs?
• Where are the vulnerabilities and risks in our current setup?

There's no easy way out – decision drivers

You've probably noticed that finding a true one-to-one replacement for VMware is no easy task. Several critical capabilities could be at stake, including advanced workload automation, seamless network virtualization, robust disaster recovery and orchestration, and a well-established ecosystem for management and monitoring. These features are integral to maintaining operational efficiency and resilience, making the decision to migrate a complex and high-stakes consideration.

Still the one

Breakups are never easy, so when deciding whether to stay with VMware or switch to another option, consider these key issues: 

• Existing Licensing: Look at your current VMware licensing, subscriptions, and support contracts. How much money do you already have invested, and does it make sense to leave?
• Additional Costs: Should you choose to migrate, consider costs for planning, testing, consulting, staff upskilling, hardware upgrades, and potential downtime.
• Operational and Training Costs: Teams will need to adapt to new tools and processes. Also, remember that hardware and infrastructure changes may require further investment depending on the target platform.
• Identify Technical Challenges: From organizational security, compatibility, and dependencies to transitioning workloads, and how to mitigate downtime, it's important to know and communicate issues may arise and how to troubleshoot them.
• Potential Operational Disruption: Transitioning is rarely easy. Bumps in the road are usually first felt via staff productivity, ongoing projects, and business continuity.

Go your own way

Although breakups can be daunting, sometimes it’s best to move on. The considerations in the previous section should be weighed against potential savings such as reduced licensing fees, improved resource utilization, and faster deployment enabled by more efficient or cost-effective alternatives. 

With rising licensing and support fees straining IT budgets, organizations are increasingly considering more affordable options such as Red Hat, Nutanix, Proxmox, Microsoft Hyper-V. There are also cloud-native offerings from AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud—choices that often deliver comparable or superior capabilities at a lower total cost of ownership. 

I want to break free

One important aspect of leaving VMware is eliminating vendor lock-in. Possessing the freedom to choose widens the possibilities of cloud and hardware providers, opening the possibility to hybrid or multi-cloud architectures that align with organizational goals and accelerate digital transformation.

Balancing these factors demands a thorough risk-reward analysis. Organizations must weigh the potential benefits—such as cost savings, increased agility, reduced vendor lock-in, and access to modern capabilities—against the complexities of migration, temporary disruptions, and the learning curve tied to adopting new technologies. To minimize uncertainty and validate assumptions, it’s important to conduct proof-of-concept migrations for viability. These trials can uncover practical challenges, provide valuable insights, and guide informed decision-making before committing to a full-scale transition.

Help!

For organizations looking to leave VMware, Leidos InSight Mission Cloud Transition Management™ offers tools, processes, and a vendor-neutral framework designed to help minimize disruption across the entire migration lifecycle. 

InSight Mission Cloud Transition Management is purpose-built for organizations motivated to reduce costs, increase agility, and tap into faster-moving innovation across modern platforms. 

Although migration may introduce upfront complexity and cost, the long-term benefits can include greater automation, faster deployment, improved negotiation power, and modern cloud-native infrastructure. Migrations, when done right, position organizations for sustained savings, higher performance, and a future-proofed technology strategy.

Anticipation

So, should you stay or should you go? As you’ve read, it’s a deeply nuanced decision that involves multiple factors and stakeholders. If you’re exploring the possibility of leaving VMware, then let’s connect and design a transition and modernization strategy that minimizes risk, builds confidence, and positions your organization for long-term success. 
 

Leidos Cloud Digital Modernization