Gartner predicts that moving away from VMware will not happen overnight. Organizations considering switching to an alternative virtualization platform should expect projects to take 18 to 48 months and cost up to $3,000 per VM.
Michael Warrilow, VP Analyst at Gartner, stressed to The Register that VMware users often underestimate the complexity of migrations. Many organizations view VMware primarily as a provider of virtualization products, while storage, the network and management layers are more likely to cause headaches, according to Warrilow.
Complex migrations
According to Gartner, these migrations are complex because many organizations use multiple components of the VMware stack. Thus, the image of VMware as just a vSphere vendor does not hold true – rip and replace isn’t going to cut it. Migrating networks (with associated security), storage (including disaster recovery), and management tools is often trickier than transferring hypervisors, the analyst firm estimates.
Gartner estimates that initial scoping alone will take seven to 10 full-time employees a month. Technical evaluation of potential VMware replacements requires another six people for up to nine months.
It is evident that competitors are fully aware of this fact. Nutanix, VMware’s most blow-for-blow alternative, has a habit of mirroring the existing VCF/VVF stacks and showing diagrams with Nutanix’s offerings as 1:1 replacements. The truth of the matter is that it’s rarely quite that simple, as integrations, settings and workflows will need to be adjusted, not to mention the operational culture and habits that surround them.
Procrastination and risk
Warrilow notes that many VMware customers have not yet established migration plans in the first place. “Everybody’s asking what everybody else is doing, and everybody else is asking what everybody else is doing, so nobody’s really doing anything,” the analyst said. He fears that many VMware users will not take action this year. This means that VMware competitors can’t yet dream of the VMware migrant flow they hope for. Incidentally, that picture is not the same everywhere: where Scale Computing, for example, has experienced gargantuan growth, Nutanix argues that the real wave of migration will not become apparent for several years.
Gartner believes that procrastination in this area can be risky. After all, customers will have to renegotiate with VMware owner Broadcom anyway if they delay. That company prefers two- or three-year subscriptions, and Warrilow fears the company will raise prices further in the future.
New mainframe
Warrilow compares VMware to “the new mainframe,” or, in other words, a legacy component of an IT infrastructure that is hard to get rid of as an organization.
It is important to note that Broadcom is not necessarily waiting for smaller customers. Broadcom’s plans and pricing fit large enterprises that fully utilize VCF and not the bulk of the former VMware customer base, which only uses vSphere.