The Broadcom acquisition of VMware has triggered a strategic shift for cloud deployments. Organizations are increasingly concerned about vendor lock-in and potential cost increases, prompting them to explore alternative solutions. OpenStack, the open-source cloud platform and governed by the OpenInfra foundation (www.openstack.org), emerges as a compelling option due to its potential for significant TCO savings, vendor neutrality, and enhanced agility. This report analyzes the opportunity for migrating workloads from VMware to OpenStack, outlining key decision points and best practices for a successful transition.

Careful planning is crucial to ensure a smooth migration with minimal downtime. This includes categorizing the applications into four categories which are refactoring, rehosting, re-platforming or retiring. The choice between these strategies depends on multiple factors, including the specific requirements of the application, the desired outcomes of the migration, the time, and resources available, and the organization’s overall cloud strategy. It is important to carefully consider these factors and choose the strategy that best aligns with the organization’s needs and goals.

This paper is focused on the “Rehosting” category for which assessing workloads for compatibility, prioritizing the application sequence for migration, establishing a testing and validation phase are important considerations. Considering these factors, organizations can successfully ease the migration process.