Most VMware users still 'actively reducing their VMware footprint,' survey finds

Source: Ars Technica

Migrations are ongoing

Broadcom introduced changes to VMware that are especially unfriendly to small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and Gartner previously predicted that 35 percent of VMware workloads would migrate elsewhere by 2028.

CloudBolt’s survey also examined how respondents are migrating workloads off of VMware. The breakdown is:

• 36 percent migrated 1–24 percent of their environment.
• 32 percent migrated 25–49 percent.
• 10 percent migrated 50–74 percent.
• 2 percent migrated 75 percent or more.
• 5 percent have not migrated from VMware at all.

Migration destinations

Among the workloads that have moved:

• 72 percent went to public cloud infrastructure as a service.
• 43 percent moved to Microsoft’s Hyper‑V/Azure stack.

Overall, 86 percent of respondents “are actively reducing their VMware footprint,” CloudBolt’s report said.

“The fear has cooled, but the pressure hasn’t—and most teams are now making practical moves to build leverage and optionality—even if for some that includes the realization that a portion of their estate never moves off VMware,” said Mark Zembal, CloudBolt’s chief marketing officer.

Migration challenges

While bundled products, fewer options, resellers, and higher prices make VMware harder to justify for many—especially SMB customers—migration is a long process with its own costs, including time spent researching alternatives and building relevant skills. CloudBolt’s reported challenges were:

• Multi‑platform complexity: 52 percent
• Skills gaps: 33 percent

“As organizations diversify away from VMware, they inherit the operational burden of managing multiple platforms with different operational and governance models,” the report reads.

Broadcom’s strategy

While companies determine the best ways to limit their dependence on VMware, Broadcom can still make money from smaller customers it doesn’t deem necessary for the long term.

“Their strategy was never to keep every customer,” the report says. “It was to maximize value from those still on the platform while the market slowly diversifies. The model assumes churn and it’s built to make the economics work anyway. Broadcom has done the math—and they’re fine with it.”