Want to Switch from VMware to Open Virtualization? Start Here.

Many companies and IT leaders are searching for VMware alternatives after some unpopular changes following Broadcom’s acquisition of the software. Open virtualization technologies provide a great alternative to VMware for a few key reasons.

Besides reducing VMware dependency, open virtualization emphasizes portability and interoperability. 

That means that, no matter how or where you set up your hypervisor and containerization architecture, you’ll be able to move workloads across platforms without experiencing the same vendor lock-in pain that you’re probably feeling right now with VMware.

VMware Alternatives Cost Comparison

Cost is the biggest factor driving interest in VMware alternatives. Once you get past the migration hurdle, running open virtualization is significantly cheaper than VMware. 

CloudFirst’s own analysis of pricing model comparison found that, for a baseline of a 10-node cluster of 64-core servers, the annual cost of running Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization Engine is about 22% the cost of VMware VCF, while Proxmox Virtual Environment (VE) Premium is even less: around 16% of the annual cost of the comparable VMware product.

In addition to the lower price point, there’s also the peace of mind that comes with less volatility in platform cost. Over the past three years since Broadcom acquired VMware, 14% of enterprises saw their bills double, while 59% saw prices rise by more than 25%. 

Since open virtualization users enjoy lower switching costs than users of proprietary platforms, their vendors don’t have the same leverage to suddenly jack up prices—and if they do, then users can more easily switch to a more competitive alternative.

Finally, especially when you work with a trusted managed cloud provider like CloudFirst, you also get improved operational resiliency and a strengthened security posture. We’ll go into more detail about this later in the article.

Why CIOs Are Looking for VMware Alternatives

Virtualization, a technology that enables the creation of virtual environments from a single physical machine, is a pillar of modern IT. It’s the fundamental technology that underpins cloud computing. 

VMware has been practically synonymous with virtualization for the past couple decades. However, after Broadcom acquired VMware for $61 billion in 2023, a slew of changes followed. “Broadcom is going to make their money back, no question, but it’s the poor IT guy who is going to suffer,” explains Steve McDowell, founder and principal analyst at NAND Research. 

Lawsuits, licensing confusion, degraded service levels, and price hikes soon followed. Many IT leaders began to look for a VMware alternative.

The price side has been particularly painful, even beyond the significant increase in cost per core. Customers were hit with a double whammy: the switch from a perpetual licensing structure to a subscription model paired with a new requirement that customers must buy a minimum of 72 cores (when the previous minimum was only 16). Understandably, many enterprise IT budget-makers are finding this a hard pill to swallow.

That’s especially true when you combine this with degraded service. As we too often see, the bar for service quality has been lowered in the wake of this large corporate acquisition. It culminated in a high-profile lawsuit in which telecom giant AT&T sued Broadcom, alleging “that Broadcom is attempting to retroactively change the terms of its existing agreements with VMware, a move the telecom company says violates contractual obligations.” The parties ended up settling in November 2024; the terms were not disclosed.

What Is Open Virtualization?

Open virtualization is any virtualization technology that is open-source, open-standard, or interoperable. Open virtualization stands in opposition to proprietary, vendor-locked products like those from VMware.

In addition to the portability and interoperability we discussed above, open virtualization is both significantly cheaper and more transparent. Since the source code is open-source, administrators and developers can audit and customize it as necessary.

Realistically, cost savings are the main driver of open virtualization adoption. When companies can save around 80% (or even more in some cases, such as smaller companies that don’t need VMware’s new minimum subscription of 72 cores), it starts to make a lot of sense. 

There’s no denying that there are often substantial costs involved with switching. However, when companies can save so much on their ongoing operations, the return on investment is clear.

What Is Open Virtualization Format?

Open Virtualization Format, or OVF, is a specific open standard for packaging and distributing virtualization technology. The standard was created by DMTF and has been adopted and published by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as ISO/IEC 17203.

OVF is platform-independent, open, and extensible. While companies certainly have the right to configure and deploy their own OVF solutions, many choose to work with a third-party vendor for virtual machine (VM) and container management.

Cybersecurity and Operational Resilience for Open Virtualization Deployments

CloudFirst delivers secure, resilient virtualization for every client system we support, whether it’s on our public cloud, on-prem, or in a hybrid configuration. In doing so, we improve resiliency through standardized disaster recovery and immutable point-in-time backups, while at the same time strengthening security posture consistency across hosted environments.

Cybersecurity for Open Virtualization

To protect against ransomware, data breaches, and other cyber attacks, implementing cybersecurity tooling and best practices is crucial. This is equally true for virtualized IT environments. 

One of the advantages of VMs is that, by deploying them programmatically from a standard configuration, we can ensure consistency and alignment across every machine.

We start with a cybersecurity hardening baseline (closing unused ports, disabling unused features, proper resource provisioning, etc), and then we establish configuration drift control so that every change is properly understood, documented, and managed.

Identity and access management is another key pillar. This involves establishing controls with multi-factor authentication (MFA), least privilege, and privileged access workflows, especially for the hypervisor and VM management planes. 

The next aspect is monitoring and incident response. Logs should be centralized from both the host and the VM to a security information and event management (SIEM) solution. When something does happen, there needs to be a clearly defined process for both handling alerts and responding to any incidents.

CloudFirst also includes patch management by default. That means keeping the hypervisor patched by applying security updates promptly as well as configuring automatic updates or a patch management process.

Finally, CloudFirst offers endpoint detection response (EDR), managed detection and response (MDR), a 24/7 security operations center (SOC), and SIEM services as part of our baseline open virtualization and cloud hosting solutions. This setup combines security automation technologies, such as AI anomaly detection, with a skilled cyber defense team.

Point-in-Time Data Protection

This backup and recovery strategy allows us to capture a known good state of your VMs and/or containers so you can easily restore if something does go wrong. 

That means that, even if you do get hit by ransomware, or someone makes a mistake and accidentally deletes a production database, you’re covered.

CloudFirst uses Carbonite Server backup for customizable long-term retention options. We work with our clients to determine a schedule that suits their compliance needs and risk profile. For instance, you may decide to keep daily backups for 30 days, weekly backups for six months, and monthly backups for seven years.

This is especially important when it comes to recovering after a ransomware attack. Threat actors may wait days, weeks, or even months after gaining access and planting malware before triggering the encryption process. If your backups are all infected with that same malware, you may find yourself in a bad situation.

When it comes to the backup data itself, we ensure that it’s always immutable, encrypted, deduplicated, and compressed.

• Immutable backups cannot be modified or deleted, even by an admin. This means that ransomware can’t go after your backups.
• Encrypted backup data can’t be read without the decryption key, protecting it from prying eyes and data breaches.
• Deduplicated data blocks are stored once, thus reducing the storage footprint and overall resource usage. This is especially important for long-term data retention.
• Compressed backups are further reduced in size. This saves our customers even more on their cloud bills.

Remember, if you don’t regularly test your backup process, then you have an assumption, not a plan. Verified recovery, which is part of CloudFirst’s standard service delivery requirement, involves performing real restores on a scheduled basis. The results of those tests are then documented and recorded to provide our customers with a full audit trail.

Disaster Recovery with Open Virtualization

Our storage-level disaster recovery (DR) architecture uses IBM technology to keep our customers’ data protected and recoverable. Whether there’s a natural disaster, a ransomware attack, or even simple human error, our DR setup ensures business continuity.

It starts with IBM FlashSystem, a dynamic and high-throughput all-flash storage solution, to which we write a safeguarded copy. This means the backup is isolated, immutable, and logically air-gapped from the production VMs.

We then replicate that data to a second site at one of our dozens of geographically separate data centers. That way, if the primary site goes offline for any reason, a copy held elsewhere can be used for a clean restore.

CloudFirst also uses IBM FlashCopy, which provides a fast point-in-time copy of data that can be brought online on a separate partition or system. We take snapshots at regular intervals and then keep them for a rolling seven-day window, providing seamless recovery to any point within the last seven days.

Through this setup, we provide a near-zero recovery point objective (RPO) on replicated volumes where workload and network allow. RPO is a tolerance limit that refers to how much data you can afford to lose. A near-zero RPO means the replicated copy is nearly in sync with the production data at all times. 

If you do have to recover, you won’t lose much (or any) data. Mileage may vary for heavier workloads with high write volumes, but in general our DR solution is optimized for both recovery speed and overall data protection.

Make the Switch from VMware to Open Virtualization with CloudFirst

We hear it all the time. You want to move away from VMware because you’re tired of the price hikes, degrading service levels, and new minimums. But you’re worried about the migration process.

You’re probably wondering: How much does it cost to switch from VMware and migrate to a new platform with open virtualization? And how much is it going to disrupt daily operations during the migration process?