Why Migrating from VMware is Difficult

Kiera Quinn
- January 22, 2026
Virtualization, VMware

Rome was not built in a day. Neither was your VMware infrastructure.

That is the part many teams are skipping.

Paying Broadcom is painful. The pressure to move quickly is real. Still, the VMware operating patterns you are trying to replace were shaped over more than two decades. In 2001, installing ESXi 1.0 without the tools now available was rough.

For years, there has been an industry around VMware. People handled installs, built integrations, and worked through the operational details. VMware became a default in the data center, and most teams no longer remember how hard it was to get to stable operations.

The Hidden Cost of “Alternatives”

Now many organizations are running into an uncomfortable reality. Alternatives can run virtual machines, but that does not mean you already have the skills and the lived operational practice to run them cleanly.

We are watching companies struggle through this right now. They run pilots, conduct bake offs, and try to learn three platforms at the same time. In practice, they are rebuilding twenty years of operational muscle memory on their own.

This is also how many organizations ended up locked into VMware in the first place. The setup work was so punishing that teams simplified to one vendor, one system, and one platform. A decade ago, purpose built systems made VMware easier. They also made it more expensive. Many remember Cisco UCS in 2010 and Dell VxRail as examples of that pattern.

A Migration That Does Not Recreate the Past

There is an opening here. You do not need to do all of this rebuilding alone.

RackN has already done the bare metal and operational work to standardize processes for OpenShift Virtualization, Nutanix, Proxmox, and VMware. Our approach preserves your workflow while incorporating current infrastructure as code and rack scale operations.

We have built the hardware abstraction and the operational patterns so you can bypass years of trial and error. We are not replacing one form of dependence with another. There is no platform lock in and no hardware OEM lock in. You get infrastructure that stays usable as your decisions evolve.

In practice, this means customers can handle upgrades in minutes, bring new gear online in hours, and negotiate pricing with more leverage because they are not cornered.

If you are leaving VMware, you will need new operating patterns, and you will need them soon. RackN can help you move faster without turning your migration into a second career. Contact us today to get started.