Leaving VMware on your own timeline: a phased plan for regional utilities

"What's the virtual machine vendor to replace VMware?" It's a question we keep hearing from utility leaders. It's a fair one, and the honest answer is that there isn't one.

The interest in leaving VMware (now owned by Broadcom) is clear. In a Rimini Street survey, 98% of 111 VMware customers said they were already using, planning to use, or considering alternatives for at least part of their VMware footprint.

That interest was spread across many alternatives. According to Network World's coverage of the survey, respondents were exploring Microsoft Hyper-V (69%), Oracle VirtualBox (51%), Red Hat Virtualization (48%), Citrix Hypervisor (26%), and Nutanix (19%), with smaller groups looking at the large public cloud providers (13%), the open-source KVM platform (11%), and Proxmox (10%). Those numbers measure interest, not market share.

There is no single successor. For a regional utility, the better question is how to leave on your own timeline.

The shift is real, and it's slow

CloudBolt's January 2026 survey of 302 North American IT decision-makers found that 86% are actively reducing their VMware footprint. Only 4% have completed a full migration, and 41% are staying with VMware while optimizing their footprint.

Analysts expect more organizations to start testing alternatives. Gartner's planning assumption is that by 2029, 55% of enterprises will initiate proofs of concept for alternatives to their VMware-based deployments, up from 25% in 2026.

Where workloads land is just as telling. According to CloudBolt, 72% of migrating workloads are headed to public cloud infrastructure rather than alternative hypervisors, with Microsoft's Hyper-V/Azure Stack (43%) and software-as-a-service replacements (34%) trailing. Gartner's 2026 Magic Quadrant for Distributed Hybrid Infrastructure rates VMware as a leader alongside AWS, Nutanix, Microsoft, and Oracle. Nutanix reported adding over 3,000 new customers in its 2026 fiscal year, and its CEO said in May that most of its customers are coming from VMware.

The takeaway: workloads are heading to several destinations, not one.

Why utilities can't treat this as a routine IT swap

For most companies, replacing a hypervisor is an IT project. For a utility, it can also be a compliance project.

For a utility subject to NERC CIP (the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's Critical Infrastructure Protection standards for grid security), the rules for virtualized systems are changing. Federal regulators approved revised standards in 2026, and NERC lists July 1, 2028 as the effective date, with an option to comply early.

Not every utility is subject to NERC CIP. Whether it applies depends on each utlity's NERC registration and the facilities they own or operate. Utilities outside its scope may answer to state regulators with their own cybersecurity requirements. Utility leaders should confirm which rules apply to them before choosing a new platform.

Either way, the platform you choose at renewal is the one you will need to secure and keep compliant.

A phased plan, workload by workload

A realistic migration moves in stages, not in one cutover. Here is the sequence we recommend.

Step 1: Inventory and classify. List every workload and sort it into two groups: grid-control systems and everyday business systems. That split shapes every decision that follows.

Step 2: Make the renewal decision and the platform selection together. Your VMware renewal date sets the deadline for choosing and proving a new platform. Work backward from it.

VMware renewal terms. The term you sign with Broadcom sets how much time you have to leave. Too short, and the migration gets rushed, or you face another renewal before the new platform is proven. Too long, and you keep paying for VMware after workloads have moved, with grid-control systems locked in before the selection is done. One IT leader in CloudBolt's survey described a significant loss of confidence in their ability "to exit quickly enough to avoid the next renewal cliff." Choose a term and scope that cover your migration window without committing longer than needed. Renewing VMware can be part of a phased exit; CloudBolt found 41% are staying with VMware while they optimize.
Requirements. Build them from your inventory: the mix of Windows and Linux systems, storage and disaster recovery needs, security and compliance requirements, application vendor support, and your team's current skills.
Destinations by workload. Decide where each group should land: public cloud, an on-premises platform, or a software-as-a-service replacement. Keep grid-control systems on-premises.
Shortlist. Narrow to two or three options. Weigh fit with your existing licenses and skills, support for critical applications, migration tools, local support coverage, full-term cost including hardware and the overlap of running two platforms, and the ability to produce compliance evidence.
Proof of concept. Test the shortlist on representative business systems. Cover migration, backup and recovery, failover, and daily operations, not only performance.
Decide together. Score the options with IT, operations, security and compliance, finance, and business leaders. Write down the decision and the reasons. The record helps with audits and keeps everyone aligned.

Step 3: Pilot on low-risk business systems first. Prove the platform, the tools, and your runbooks where a problem won't affect the grid.

Step 4: Plan to run two platforms for a while. Budget for the overlap in licenses, hardware, and staff time. One respondent in CloudBolt's survey put it plainly: "The process of unwinding a decade of process dependencies is taking 18-24 months."

Step 5: Move grid-control systems last. Schedule them after the platform is proven, and align them with any compliance deadlines that apply.

Check your migration tools before committing

This year, Broadcom removed public access to a software component that migration tools including Microsoft Azure Migrate, Red Hat's Migration Toolkit, and Nutanix Move rely on. Broadcom told TechTarget the component is meant only for backup and recovery by licensed VMware customers.

Why this matters: the component underpins migration toolkits from several vendors. If the tool you plan to use depends on it, your migration path may not work as designed. Red Hat's support site said it didn't yet have a direct replacement because the software is proprietary and licensed. Other methods exist, including migrating through external storage systems, but switching methods mid-project costs time. An IDC analyst told TechTarget that eliminating the component "certainly increases the potential of vendor lock-in."

Ask every migration vendor on your shortlist whether their tool depends on it, and how they will move your workloads if it does. Analysts quoted by TechTarget gave the same advice.

Start right

In our experience, migrations that struggle usually trace back to how they started, not the platform chosen.

CorSource Enable Technology Initiatives gets a platform migration project started right. You get a concrete, prioritized plan your team is aligned around and ready to execute, with change management built in from the start, not added at the end.

If a VMware migration is on your project list, we can help you make the best decision before you commit to new contracts and assign resources.