Rackspace is moving some of its back-office workloads from VMware to a platform called Private Cloud Director, offered by cloud infrastructure company Platform9.
According to The Register, Rackspace began exploring the possibility of migrating from VMware after software costs rose due to Broadcom’s licensing changes. This created a need to consider cheaper alternatives.
Justin Kuss, VP of Product and Architect for Application and Platform Modernization at Rackspace, said the company is aware of the licensing changes and their meaning. The goal is to keep the infrastructure running as efficiently as possible.
As a result, Rackspace has migrated about 50 virtual machines (VMs), including databases, application servers and third-party systems, to Platform9’s Private Cloud Director (PCD).
Platform9 and migration tool vJailbreak
Launched in 2024, PCD is designed to largely mimic VMware’s stack’s functionality. Platform9 also developed a migration tool called vJailbreak, which automatically converts VMware deployments to OpenStack.
According to Madhura Maskasky, co-founder and VP of Product at Platform9, vJailbreak can perform migrations much cheaper than the $300 to $3,000 per VM that analyst firm Gartner estimated for professional migration services. Kuss is impressed with the tool and says Rackspace has already migrated VMs within an hour. He sees another 3,000 VMs as potential candidates for a move to PCD.
Still, he stresses that Rackspace maintains a strong relationship with Broadcom and still offers hosted VMware solutions.
Broadcom more expensive
Since acquiring VMware, Broadcom has decided to sell products only in bundles. Although Broadcom claims the price per product has been reduced, the mandatory bundling, pre-funded subscriptions and mandatory support means higher costs for virtually all VMware customers.
Maskasky previously worked at VMware and helped develop vCloud Director, a predecessor to Broadcom’s current Cloud Foundation stack. Her experience helped build PCD as a simple alternative to VMware migrations.
Platform9 rewrote much of its platform, added a new user interface and implemented Kubernetes to manage key components. The final product uses the open-source KVM hypervisor, OpenStack and Kubernetes to host VMs and containers, run virtual networks and support software-defined storage.
Many companies are leaving VMware
Maskasky said an unnamed Fortune 500 company has deployed PCD to migrate 40,000 VMs. Another Fortune 500 company based in India is doing a similar migration. Meanwhile, companies such as Anexia, Beeks Group, GEICO, Computershare and Boyd Gaming report major migrations from VMware. Broadcom CEO Hock Tan claims that revenue and profits are growing faster than expected despite these moves.
According to an HPE executive who spoke to The Register recently, many companies are leaving VMware out of frustration with Broadcom’s Computer Associates and Symantec acquisitions. However, Kuss stresses that Rackspace’s move is purely for more efficient infrastructure, not resentment toward Broadcom. He thinks some people are still angry about what happened last year, but most organisations are looking at alternative infrastructure options.
Maskasky also notes that customers no longer want to be dependent on one vendor that can raise prices at will. Many organizations are extending their VMware licenses by necessity but are planning a switch over time. Once companies have prepared for them, more migrations are expected to follow in the coming years.
For now, however, a major Broadcom partner is significantly reducing its reliance on VMware and embracing an OpenStack-based solution that it helped develop itself.