Many articles and studies have been published discussing the “re-virtualization strategies” that numerous companies are evaluating or implementing in response to significant changes in contract terms following Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware. These changes include price increases of up to 1,000%, prompting organizations to reconsider their virtualization solutions.

VMware’s status as the leading name in virtualization means that Broadcom’s acquisition has had a significant impact on its extensive customer base of over 500,000 organizations. Re-virtualization, as described in Gartner’s 2024 Hype Cycle, involves “introducing a replacement hypervisor-based virtualization technology and associated software for management and resilience, enabling live migration and host-based recovery.” Gartner estimates that re-virtualization has reached 5% to 20% of the target market.

A crucial decision for organizations is selecting the right cloud management solution to address technical challenges and mitigate commercial risks. Over the past few months, we have successfully assisted dozens of companies in migrating to OpenNebula. The most common alternatives compared to OpenNebula in enterprise environments are Nutanix and Red Hat, while for smaller deployments and virtualization management, Proxmox is occasionally considered.

The purpose of this post is not to benchmark the available alternatives but to offer recommendations that can streamline the migration, saving both time and costs.

• The first key factor to consider is functionality. With over 15 years in the market, our experience at OpenNebula has shown that no two use cases are identical. Our first recommendation for companies exploring alternatives is to create a detailed table of requirements, highlighting the key features and integrations they need. With this framework, they can collaborate with vendors to conduct an effective benchmarking process.
• Pricing comparison is, of course, a critical factor as well, and it should account for both current and future infrastructure needs. It’s important to note that pricing models vary significantly between vendors. For instance, some vendors charge per CPU socket, like Proxmox, or per pair of CPU sockets, like VMware and Red Hat. Others, like OpenNebula, offer a more flexible model, charging per server regardless of the number of CPU sockets.
• Another critical consideration is the enterprise readiness of the platform, particularly in terms of the support and services provided by the vendor. While Nutanix, Red Hat, and OpenNebula offer 24/7 support along with a comprehensive range of professional services, Proxmox subscriptions have several significant limitations. Even at the premium level, Proxmox support is limited to business hours in the European time zone (CEST/CET), with no global or 24/7 support options. Furthermore, the number of annual support tickets is restricted to 10 for the Standard tier and just 3 for the Basic tier, significantly reducing the level of assistance available to users.
• Another crucial aspect to consider is the availability of specific migration services and tools. Migrating from VMware infrastructure can vary in complexity, depending on the scale and nature of the environment. To simplify this transition, OpenNebula has introduced advanced tools designed to automate and streamline virtual machine migrations from vCenter Server to OpenNebula Cloud. Using our OneSwap technology, customers have reported a 97% success rate in automated VM migrations, with only 3% of VMs requiring manual intervention. Additionally, we have launched a VMware Migration Service to assist companies in planning and executing a migration strategy from VMware to OpenNebula. 

While functionality, pricing, enterprise readiness, and migration assistance are important criteria, our experience shows that the most critical strategic factor is ensuring that the same risks are not repeated in the future. Migrating to proprietary technologies like Nutanix or Red Hat, where the commercial solution is not fully open source, essentially means adopting a vendor-dependent platform. This exposes organizations to potential changes in terms of pricing due to acquisitions or business decisions.

At the same time, while Proxmox is open source, it has significant limitations for enterprise-scale and complex environments. It lacks critical enterprise features such as scalability and federation, multi-tenancy, integration and automation, advanced cloud orchestration and provisioning capabilities, multi-VM auto-scaling, multi-site and hybrid cloud functionality, hardware-agnostic design, and robust 24/7 support services.

At OpenNebula, our goal is to provide an open, flexible, and vendor-neutral cloud and virtualization management platform. OpenNebula is a fully open source solution, meaning you can continue using it even if you choose not to renew your subscription or if our terms change for any reason.

We offer a comprehensive set of features and integrations, competitive pricing, 24/7 enterprise-grade support, professional services, and tailored migration solutions. With over 15 years of experience and major industry players as reference customers, OpenNebula is also at the forefront of innovation. We lead large-scale initiatives such as the €3 billion IPCEI-CIS project, further solidifying our position as a trusted and forward-thinking cloud management provider.