Alternatives for Vmware Users

The Virtualization Landscape is Shifting: Why IT Leaders are Reconsidering Hyper-V** Following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware and the subsequent 300-400% price increases with mandatory subscription models, many organizations are reevaluating their virtualization strategies. As someone who's analyzed both platforms extensively, I believe Microsoft's Windows Server Failover Clustering (WSFC) with Hyper-V deserves serious consideration. Key Strategic Advantages: 💼 Financial Impact - Eliminate hypervisor licensing fees (included with Windows Server) - Leverage existing hardware investments without forklift upgrades - Real-world savings: $46K-$152K over 3 years for medium deployments - Predictable licensing vs. VMware's new per-core subscription model 🏗️ Technical Capabilities - Type-1 hypervisor with 98-99% bare-metal performance - Live migration, automatic failover, and enterprise scalability - Storage Spaces Direct provides software-defined storage without additional costs - Advanced security features including Shielded VMs and TPM 2.0 support ⚙️ Operational Benefits - Familiar management tools for Windows-focused teams - PowerShell automation and Windows Admin Center integration - Reduced complexity with unified Microsoft ecosystem - Lower learning curve compared to adopting new platforms 🎯 When Hyper-V Makes Sense: - Windows-centric environments seeking cost optimization - Organizations with existing Windows Server investments - Teams comfortable with Microsoft management tools - Businesses impacted by VMware's pricing changes Strategic Considerations: While VMware still excels in heterogeneous environments and has extensive third-party integrations, the cost differential has become significant enough that even complex organizations are evaluating alternatives. The question isn't whether Hyper-V can match VMware's capabilities—it largely can for most use cases. The question is whether the substantial cost savings and operational benefits align with your organization's strategic priorities. For IT leaders navigating budget pressures while maintaining service levels, this analysis is particularly relevant in 2025. What factors are driving your infrastructure decisions this year? Have you evaluated the total cost impact of recent virtualization pricing changes? Read the complete technical analysis and ROI calculator: https://lnkd.in/eKRePvCp #ITLeadership #Virtualization #HyperV #VMware #CostOptimization #ITStrategy #WindowsServer #Infrastructure #DigitalTransformation #ITBudget #TierPoint

Virtualization Strategy Reset: Broadcom Fallout Sparks CIO Pivot I currently see that CIOs are continuing seeking sustainable, strategic alternatives to Broadcom / VMware -- not just to avoid the well-known licensing upheaval -- but to modernize for the AI era. Red Hat confirms accelerating adoption of OpenShift Virtualization, driven by: ⚠️ VMware licensing disruption 🧠 Urgency around AI readiness 🏗️ Pressure to overhaul aging infrastructure Let’s break down what’s really happening: 👇 1️⃣ OpenShift Virtualization is fast becoming a new backbone for enterprise workloads. Global brands like Ford Motor Company and Emirates NBD are already migrating VMs, and reporting up to 77% TCO savings. This isn’t just about cost. It’s about real platform trust, longevity, and hybrid cloud consistency. CIOs need a foundation that can scale across VMs, containers, and AI workloads. OpenShift is emerging as that bet. 2️⃣ Red Hat’s deeper signal: This is not a lift-and-shift story. It’s a strategic realignment toward AI-native infrastructure. Tools like LLM-d and vLLM are building blocks for enterprise-grade GenAI, making OpenShift more than a virtualization replacement. It’s becoming a launchpad for AI acceleration, tuned to run anywhere, on any accelerator. ✅ The upshot: If your org is still dependent on traditional virtualization stacks, there is now a trusted, open, hybrid AI platform gaining real traction in the market. Antonio Grasso Antonio Vieira Santos Eric Kavanagh Keith Townsend Louis C. Joe McKendrick David Terrar Yves Mulkers Sally Eaves David Linthicum #CIO #HybridCloud #Virtualization #AIInfrastructure #OpenSource #OpenShift #DigitalTransformation #GenAI #DataCenter #Workloads

About 95 percent of respondents see the Broadcom acquisition [of VMWare] as disruptive to their IT strategies -- writes Jeffrey Burt on The Next Platform, based on a a CloudBolt Software survey of 300 executives from organizations using VMWare. ‘How can you help us? How quickly can you get us onto your platform?’ -- is the question VMWare users are asking Red Hat according to Simon Seagrave, senior principal product marketing manager. VMware customers are looking for options for their virtualized workloads -- hello Red Hat !! -- a company that has always had conversations with VMware users inquiring about its #OpenShift container and #OpenStack virtualization platform, with much of the talk focusing on modernization, according to Simon Seagrave, senior principal product marketing manager. However, Red Hat began getting calls from VMware users that were tinged with more urgency, almost immediately after the Broadcom acquisition. “What we’ve found in the last year is that customers obviously, unfortunately, have had a little bit of sticker shock as renewal prices subscription based on their traditional virtualization platform,” he says. “They were looking for alternatives. … Customers new and existing were coming to us. ‘How can you help us? How quickly can you get us onto your platform?’ It was very much a response to the events that happened within the virtualization industry.” For many of those enterprises, the goal was less about modernizing what they had by adding containerization capabilities and more about finding safe harbor for their virtualization workloads as their contracts with VMware expired. Red Hat this week is throwing them a lifeline with the launch of OpenShift Virtualization Engine [OVE], a new OpenShift edition that essentially removes the container capabilities to give VMware users a virtualization-only OpenShift option. With OVE, “we basically took an edition of OpenShift that was just primarily focused on virtualization only,” Seagrave says. “It’s exactly the same code. It’s OpenShift virtualization. That’s no different than the other editions of OpenShift at all. It’s exactly the same, but it’s really more of a consumption model. Basically, we get rid of any of the ability to run containers on the platform, although it can technically still do it. They just won’t be license for it. It just focuses purely on virtualization. So as such, it’s not a new product per se.” It includes the KVM hypervisor, can run both on-premises on hardware that supports Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and supported bare-metal cloud services in the cloud, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. OVE also gives users access to Red Hat’s Migration Tool for Virtualization (MTV) to ease the moving of workloads to the new OpenShift platform. Click below to read more on the details https://lnkd.in/gYDwAn-f Michael Barrett

Broadcom’s takeover of VMware has shaken up the IT world — a year later & steep price hikes, long-term contracts, and disappearing products have left customers scrambling. My Forbes piece looks at the alternatives: → Public Cloud: Scalable and flexible but requires careful cost management and potential re-architecting. There's also the cloud lock-in concern. → Microsoft Azure Stack HCI: Seamless Azure integration but requires specific hardware and a learning curve. → Microsoft Hyper-V: cost-effective choice with strong Windows integration but lacking VMware’s advanced management features. → Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization: Ideal for container-first strategies but requires Kubernetes expertise and migration effort. → Nutanix, with its Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure, is emerging as the top choice, mirror most of VMware’s functionality, with automated migration tools and hybrid-cloud support, while also providing a path forward to cloud-native and AI-powered workloads. Choosing the right solution is key to ensuring a smooth transition. Whether you’re considering cloud migration, re-virtualization, or modernizing with containers, there's a lot to consider. My take, at the link. https://lnkd.in/eNfb_Bpj

We've seen firsthand the rising costs and complexity many organizations face with proprietary virtualization solutions like VMware Tanzu. That's why we've partnered with SUSE, creators of the innovative open-source hyperconverged infrastructure solution #Harvester, to provide a powerful alternative. Our guide dives deep into how ABOps, our flagship Kubernetes operations platform combined with SUSE’s Harvester, delivers: - Dramatic reductions in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - Simplified Kubernetes and VM management across hybrid and multi-cloud environments - Enhanced security and compliance - Real-world migration strategies and case studies from leading enterprises and government agencies We're committed to enabling organizations to break free from vendor lock-in and embrace a future built on flexibility, efficiency, and openness. AlphaBravo 🇺🇸 - SUSE