Gaining Confidence in Your VMware Exit Plan: Part 2

OK, we've discussed the need for Discovery and Assessment as a phase I.  While it's prudent to start your Discovery and Analysis early on, there is often an overlooked aspect of any migration and that aspect is particularly important when moving away from VMware.   

You've likely been using VMware for quite some time, it's a foundation of your previous IT strategy and you are comfortable with it.  But just changing technology, VMware to something else, may meet a short term financial need, but simply adopting a new technology and keeping your existing model does not necessarily meet your longer term business and IT objectives.   It's vital that you consider other factors for your overall business requirements and objectives.  There are many factors to consider. 

For instance, which workloads are business critical and are performance sensitive?  While having the flexibility of Cloud technology would improve responsiveness for these applications, you may not want to run these workloads in a shared public environment and would be better positioned in a Private Cloud.   

Then, if contemplating Private Cloud, how does that fit into any existing Public Cloud strategy?  Are there geographic or real estate considerations?  Do you need to modernize your datacenter power, cooling, and battery backup to keep any workloads on premises?  There are numerous excellent Private Cloud technologies today and more than likely one will match your needs for this class of workloads.  Which ones are compatible and integrated with any existing Public Cloud strategy?  And of course, your security and authentication strategy should work seamlessly across all your environments.   

Another crucial issue to plan for is your Resiliency and Disaster Recovery plan.  Along with and related to DR do you anticipate ongoing mobility requirements, moving workloads between on prem, your Private Cloud and Public Cloud?  It's easy to think there will be no ongoing mobility requirements but more than likely there will be.  Plan now for that contingency so you aren't stuck when the time comes.   

Let's highlight some important considerations for your Resilience/DR plan.  This is often the most overlooked element of a VMware exit. Organizations focus heavily on cost reduction, licensing changes, or hypervisor replacement, yet unintentionally assume that resilience and disaster recovery will “look the same” in the new environment. That assumption is risky.  Exiting VMware is not just a platform change, it can impact operations across the board.  

Why DR Must Be Part of the Exit Plan, Not a Follow-On Project 

VMware environments rarely exist in isolation.  Over time, organizations have layered in availability, backup, and DR tooling that is deeply integrated with the VMware ecosystem.  When you exit VMware: 

• Those tools may no longer exist or simply not work 

• Or they may exist in reduced or altered form 

• Or they may behave very differently or unexpectedly in your new environment 

Simply migrating workloads without rethinking resilience creates a dangerous gap between migration success and recovery readiness. 

Backup Is Not Disaster Recovery 

One of the most common misconceptions, especially during platform transitions, is equating backup with disaster recovery.  In a VMware exit scenario, relying on backup alone often results in recovery timelines measured in weeks, not hours or days.  In the modern era that would be unacceptable and possibly lead to complete business failure.    

Even with a backup plan during and after transition backups alone do not restore business operations in a predictable or timely manner. 

True disaster recovery requires: 

• A provisioning strategy, combined at-time and pre-provisioned 

• Applications boot order  

• Automated orchestration and repeatable processes 

• Networking, security, and access controls to be in place 

• Confidence gained through testing, not assumptions 

• Geographic risk considerations 

Fitting into Your Overall Hybrid Cloud Strategy  

A modern disaster recovery plan can no longer assume a single, homogeneous environment.  With Hybrid Cloud and Multi-Cloud and the varying degrees of deployment, your DR plan should take advantage of these options.   As organizations exit VMware, they often find themselves operating in a mixed landscape that includes on-premises infrastructure, one or more private cloud platforms, and public cloud services.  An effective DR strategy will optimally be designed to operate across this entire milieu, not as separate, siloed recovery plans for each environment.  The goal is not simply to recover servers in another location.  Your DR plan is another way to leverage and improve ROI of your Hybrid Cloud strategy.   

Exit with Confidence, Not Just Completion 

A VMware exit is often the first step in a longer journey toward business flexibility and efficiency.  A successful VMware exit is not defined by the last workload being migrated. It includes your overall plan to understand and prepare to implement your Hybrid Cloud strategy.  You certainly don't want to implement the entire plan all at once, of course; you'll want to stage it.  But reviewing your Discovery and Assessment information, evaluating with your overall business needs and including your Resiliency strategy is an efficient and structured way to meet your IT and business goals for the coming years.