For more than fifteen years, VMware has been the natural choice for enterprise virtualization. Today, the landscape has changed. Evolving licensing models, the need to control costs and new approaches to infrastructure are leading many organizations to reassess their strategy.
The question is no longer simply: "Should we move away from VMware?"
But rather: "Which architecture will best meet our needs over the next five years?"
VMware remains a relevant option
Despite changes in the market, VMware remains a robust, mature and widely proven platform.
For companies that rely heavily on solutions such as vSphere, vSAN, NSX or Horizon (although alternatives are now available for hosting Horizon VDI through Omnissa), migrating can represent a significant investment with no immediate benefit. In some cases, the best decision is simply to optimize the existing environment, streamline licensing and continue using a platform that teams already know well.
Staying with VMware is therefore not a bad choice, provided it continues to meet the company's needs and makes financial sense.
Why reassess your strategy?
For many organizations, the main consideration is economic.
License renewals often provide an opportunity to ask several questions:
- Are we actually using all the features we are paying for?
- What will our platform cost over the next three to five years?
- Are there alternatives that better suit our needs?
- Are we too dependent on a single vendor?
This naturally leads organizations to explore solutions such as Nutanix AHV, Microsoft Hyper-V or Azure Local, among others, as well as alternative operating models.
The real question may no longer be about the hypervisor
For a long time, infrastructure strategy essentially came down to choosing a virtualization platform.
Today, organizations have more options:
- on-premises infrastructure;
- sovereign cloud;
- managed services;
- Kubernetes platforms;
- hybrid architectures.
The objective is no longer necessarily to replace VMware with another hypervisor, but rather to identify the environment best suited to each workload.
Some applications will continue to run on on-premises infrastructure, while others can be hosted in a sovereign cloud or modernized using cloud-native technologies.
Sovereign cloud as an opportunity
For many European companies, digital sovereignty has become an important consideration.
Migrating certain workloads to a sovereign cloud makes it possible to retain control over data while entrusting the management of the infrastructure platform to a trusted partner.
This approach offers several advantages:
- reduced internal operational workload;
- greater cost predictability;
- access to specialized expertise;
- continued compliance and security;
- greater flexibility to support business evolution.
With this model, the company is no longer simply managing its hypervisor but consuming a service backed by performance and availability commitments.
Containers are also changing the game
Application modernization is also leading many organizations to explore Kubernetes platforms and containers.
The goal is not to replace all virtual machines, but to enable new applications to be developed and operated according to more modern standards.
Most companies will gradually move towards a mixed model:
- legacy applications running on virtual machines;
- new applications running on Kubernetes;
- workloads distributed between on-premises infrastructure and the cloud.
This approach gradually reduces dependency on a single model while preserving existing investments.
Towards a hybrid infrastructure
In most cases, the target is neither an all-VMware nor an all-cloud environment.
The most relevant architectures generally combine:
- an on-premises foundation for critical applications;
- a sovereign cloud for selected workloads;
- a virtualization platform tailored to actual requirements;
- managed services to reduce the operational workload;
- Kubernetes environments for new applications.
The challenge is to place each workload in the right environment rather than impose a single solution across the entire information system.
The DEEP approach
At DEEP, we support our customers with a pragmatic approach that begins with an assessment of their existing environment, costs, dependencies and transformation objectives.
Depending on their needs, the best path may be to:
- retain VMware;
- migrate to an alternative platform;
- move selected workloads to a sovereign cloud;
- modernize applications using Kubernetes;
- implement a hybrid architecture combining several models.
The right decision is not necessarily to leave VMware. The right decision is to ensure that the infrastructure remains aligned with the organization's business, financial, regulatory and technological requirements.
The question is therefore no longer simply whether to stay with VMware or move away from it. It is about defining the combination of infrastructure and services that will best support the company in the years ahead.
