Streamlining IT Modernization: How a New Partnership Aims to Drastically Cut VM Migration Costs
For many organizations, the path to modern, cloud-native infrastructure is paved with significant obstacles. The primary challenge? The immense cost and complexity associated with moving away from legacy virtualization platforms. Migrating virtual machines (VMs) to new, container-based environments often feels like a daunting, all-or-nothing proposition that requires extensive capital, time, and specialized skills.
However, a groundbreaking collaboration between infrastructure leader Hitachi Vantara and open-source giant Red Hat is set to change this narrative. By combining their strengths, they are offering a streamlined, cost-effective path for enterprises to modernize their IT operations without the traditional headaches.
The Core Challenge: Breaking Free from Legacy Virtualization
For years, businesses have relied on established virtualization solutions to run their critical applications. While effective, these platforms can lead to vendor lock-in, escalating licensing fees, and operational silos that separate traditional workloads from modern, containerized applications.
The move to platforms like Red Hat OpenShift, a leading enterprise Kubernetes platform, promises greater agility, scalability, and efficiency. The problem has always been the journey. A “rip-and-replace” strategy is not only disruptive to business operations but also financially prohibitive for many. This forces IT leaders into a difficult choice: stay with expensive legacy systems or undertake a high-risk, high-cost migration project.
A Unified Solution for a Hybrid World
The new joint solution from Hitachi and Red Hat directly addresses this dilemma by creating a unified platform where old and new can coexist. At its core, the offering allows businesses to run existing virtual machines and new, containerized applications side-by-side on the same Red Hat OpenShift platform.
This is made possible by integrating Hitachi Vantara’s highly reliable and performant converged infrastructure—the Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP)—with Red Hat OpenShift’s powerful virtualization capabilities. Instead of forcing a massive migration, this approach provides an evolutionary path forward.
Key Benefits of this New Approach
This integrated solution offers several compelling advantages for businesses looking to modernize their infrastructure thoughtfully and economically.
- Significantly Lower Costs: By consolidating VMs and containers onto a single platform, organizations can dramatically reduce the licensing fees associated with legacy virtualization providers. This consolidation also leads to a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by simplifying hardware and software management.
- Simplified Management and Operations: Managing two separate environments—one for VMs and another for containers—creates complexity and increases operational overhead. This unified solution provides a single pane of glass for managing all workloads, streamlining operations, automating tasks, and freeing up valuable IT resources.
- A Phased, Low-Risk Modernization Path: The ability to run VMs within OpenShift means businesses no longer need to re-architect all their legacy applications at once. They can migrate applications at their own pace, containerizing them when it makes business sense, all while maintaining operational stability. This phased approach minimizes disruption and de-risks the entire modernization process.
- Future-Proofing Your Infrastructure: This solution provides a solid foundation for a true hybrid cloud strategy. By building on Red Hat OpenShift, organizations gain the flexibility to deploy applications consistently across on-premises data centers and public clouds, ensuring their infrastructure is ready for future demands.
Actionable Advice for Your Organization
For IT leaders and decision-makers, this development presents a strategic opportunity. If your organization is contemplating an infrastructure overhaul, consider the following steps:
- Evaluate Your Current Virtualization Costs: Conduct a thorough analysis of what you are currently spending on virtualization licensing, support, and hardware. Understanding your current TCO is the first step in building a business case for change.
- Identify Initial Migration Candidates: You don’t have to move everything at once. Identify a few non-critical or development/test workloads to migrate first. A successful pilot project can build confidence and demonstrate the value of a unified platform.
- Focus on a Long-Term Strategy: View this not just as a cost-cutting measure, but as a strategic move toward greater operational agility and a hybrid cloud future. Align your infrastructure plans with your long-term business goals.
By embracing a unified platform, your organization can break free from the constraints of legacy systems, accelerate innovation, and build a more resilient and efficient IT foundation for the years to come.
Source: https://datacenternews.asia/story/hitachi-vantara-red-hat-unite-to-simplify-vm-migration-costs
