Migration Myth-Busting: Why Moving from VMware Isn’t as Scary as You Think

"The only constant in life is change." Wise words from Heraclitus, two millennia before the digital revolution.

In the enterprise technology world, that maxim could easily be rewritten as: The only constant in IT is change. Platforms evolve, licensing models shift, and infrastructure decisions that felt solid five years ago suddenly need rethinking. For many organizations, that reality now includes re-evaluating their virtualization strategy and, in some cases, making the move from VMware to a different hypervisor.

On paper, the choice might be straightforward. In the real world, it can feel like staring over the edge of a cliff, where one wrong step leads to downtime, spiraling costs, or unforeseen technical snags. That perception is understandable, but it's also unfounded.

In this article, we'll bust the most common migration myths, challenge the assumptions that make the process seem riskier than it is, and show how the right approach turns that cliff into a well-built bridge, connecting where you are to where you need to be. You'll see that moving to a new hypervisor doesn't have to be disruptive. In fact, it can be an opportunity to modernize on your own terms, at your own pace, with your own people, and with a trusted partner.

Myth #1: Migration Means an All-or-Nothing Leap

• Aligning with planned hardware refresh cycles - This removes the need to purchase additional gear beyond what's already budgeted. Auxiliary components, such as switches or external storage, can be accounted for in that refresh plan or consolidated into a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) model.
• Working within normal operations - Migrations happen during existing or planned patching and/or maintenance windows.
• Using swing gear - Repurpose recently freed-up HCI-capable hardware as a temporary staging space, accelerating migration without buying extra equipment. Consider the migration of workloads to the new hypervisor that proactively frees up existing gear that is HCI-capable instead of just migrating workloads from your oldest gear to the new purchase. Plan for the creation of swing gear.
• Building in flexibility - Adjust the migration order based on workload complexity, certification needs, or hardware availability. Find that low-hanging fruit that will work right out of the box and build your team's knowledge and confidence in the new platform.

The bottom line: when migration is treated as an extension of normal business activity rather than a disruptive, all-at-once project, your risk drops dramatically. Instead of staring over the edge of a cliff, you're simply taking the next step in your regular IT roadmap and expanding your options for the future.

Myth #2: Everything Must Be Re-Certified

Another common fear is application compatibility, or more specifically, that the application is only certified on VMware. Organizations often assume that because an application is "VMware-certified", it must be re-certified before it can run anywhere else. At first glance, that sounds logical-until you peel back the layers.

In most cases, application certification happens at the operating system (OS) level, not the hypervisor level. If your applications run on Windows or Linux today, they'll still run on Windows or Linux tomorrow. Moving from VMware ESXi to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor, for example, doesn't change the application environment or the OS it depends on. It simply changes the hosting layer underneath. To the application, nothing has changed.

This is where perception and reality diverge. While some workloads may require additional certification, those are the exception, not the rule, and most alternative platforms already have a substantial list of certified applications. For the rare case where a required certification isn't yet in place, you can schedule that workload later in the migration plan while the certification is secured from the hypervisor provider.

It's common for competitors to try and make certification a major obstacle: "We have hundreds of thousands of certified apps, and they only have a fraction of that. Are you willing to take the risk?" This overlooks the reality that most modern enterprise applications run on common operating systems or containers, and those environments are supported across multiple hypervisors, or support from the hypervisor is not needed, as the support and certification are at the OS level.

The takeaway here is not to let the certification issue muddy the waters. Focus on your actual application stack and where the OS certification is the true need for vendor support. Identify any truly hypervisor-dependent certifications, and plan accordingly. Chances are, most of your workloads can make the move without missing a beat, and without waiting on a certification checklist that's more marketing than necessity.

Myth #3: Cost Comparisons are Apples to Apples

Pricing is often one of the first objections raised when evaluating a move away from VMware, but many of these comparisons are flawed from the start. A common scenario goes like this: A customer receives a renewal quote for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and asks for a "comparable" quote from an alternative vendor. On paper, it looks like the alternative costs more. In reality, the comparison is apples to oranges.

Why? Often customers aren't using everything included in VCF. A customer may only take advantage of a fraction of its features, yet VMware bundles it as an all-or-nothing package. With VCF, you're now paying for all its features-regardless of which ones you actually use.That means paying for more than just ESXi, even if that's the only component a customer relies on.

By contrast, alternatives like the Nutanix Cloud Platform solution offer a range of licensing options aligned to actual needs. You can choose the tier that optimally matches your current environment, often gaining additional features you'll actually use, without being forced into an oversized bundle.

There's also an apples-to-oranges misconception. Some customers try to compare ESXi pricing directly with a competitor's full-stack HCI offering. The problem? ESXi is no longer sold standalone-it's only available as part of VCF. If you're buying VMware today, you're buying VCF whether you want the entire bundle or not. So the only fair comparison is between VCF and an equivalent integrated solution.

The bottom line: when you compare what you must buy from VMware against what you actually need from an alternative, the picture changes dramatically. By rightsizing the solution to your requirements, you can align costs more closely with value and avoid paying for features you'll never use.

Myth #4: You'll Have to Retrain Everyone from Scratch

Another common worry is that migrating to a new hypervisor means sending your IT team back to square one. The reality is far less daunting.

In fact, the core skills needed to manage ESXi-provisioning virtual machines, managing storage, and configuring networking-are transferable. Moving from VMware ESXi to Nutanix AHV, for example, is like switching to a different, streamlined version of familiar tool. In fact, many customers find day-to-day operations easier post-migration, thanks to simple interfaces and relief from manual tasks.

There's no "knife-edge" change in knowledge, either. The migration planning period provides a built-in window for upskilling, cross-training, and certification. If your refresh cycle and migration plan span several months, your team can take advantage of boot camps, admin guides, and even vendor-led lunch-and-learn sessions, far before the first workload moves. For many customers, they start prior to contract signing.

That said, deciding who should handle the migration-your IT team or the vendor's technical experts-depends on your organization's priorities and capacity. If you have a large team that wants to own the process and can free up staff, an internal approach works well. If your team is already stretched thin with current operations that will need to be maintained until they are migrated over, partner-led migrations bring in seasoned expertise and free your staff to focus on day-to-day operations. A hybrid model offers the best of both worlds: let partners handle the initial waves while your team shadows the process, builds confidence, and eventually takes over later phases.

The key takeaway is that you don't need to overhaul your team's skill set to make the move. You're taking what they already know and making it easier, not harder, to run your virtual infrastructure by adding to their existing skillset. You are future-proofing not only your infrastructure, but your people as well.

Change Is Inevitable, But Risk Doesn't Have to Be

Whether your VMware migration is led by internal teams, outside experts, or a combination of both, the path forward is far more approachable than many IT leaders imagine. By separating fact from fiction, you can sidestep the common misconceptions that artificially inflate risk, complexity, and cost.

The typical fears of migrating to another hypervisor are based on unfounded assumptions, and each one has a practical, low-risk reality. With a phased approach, realistic cost comparisons, a clear understanding of application compatibility, and a smart training and execution plan, the "mountain" of migration simply becomes a series of manageable molehills along your normal path.

In IT, standing still is an illusion, and technology will continue to change. But with the right strategy, you can modernize your virtualization environment at your own pace, on your own terms, and with full confidence that the result will be simpler, more cost-effective, and ready for whatever comes next.

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