Cover image for LiveWyer blog post: VMware Migration - Technical Demos & Outcome Based Pilots
Engineering • 7min read

VMware Migration - Technical Demos & Outcome Based Pilots

Observe a VMware to KubeVirt technical demo and how a Pilot can deliver business value

Written by:

Avatar Anthony Hodson Anthony Hodson

Published on:

Nov 12, 2025

Last updated on:

Nov 12, 2025

This blog is part of our VMware Migration series, we recommend reading the rest of the posts in the series:

VMware Migration

We’ve officially concluded our VMware migration series! The final instalment, released November 5th, explores the practical path from a siloed VMware estate to a Cloud Native solution with Virtualisation built in.

I was joined by David O’Dwyer, whose team from LiveWyer worked with partners from Kubermatic and Portworx by Pure Storage to build this definitive resource. This episode marks the end of the series, but it also marks the perfect time to start your migration journey!

Episode Recap & Useful Resources

Episode 1: Explored the “Why”, the market forces, and technology shifts driving the need for change. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSmT4qfd3KE

Episode 2: Provided a “Rosetta Stone”, a clear technological dictionary to help teams translate concepts between the VMware and Cloud Native worlds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ekNSf_DJQ

Episode 3: Shared the “How-To”, explored Industry Trends, Compliance, Practical Demos, Pilots, and Pilot Costs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH4ZmgpqIec

Are your VMware costs spiralling out of control?

Discover how KubeVirt and our cloud-native solution can replace your VMware infrastructure without compromising operational reliability. Our three-week assessment validates practical migration approaches that maintain performance whilst reducing vendor dependency.

See if open-source virtualisation can help alleviate your cost pressures and enable greater infrastructure flexibility, without compromising the stability your business operations depend on.

Migrate to Kubernetes - What do the numbers say?

To give a current grounding, we also explored some current indicators that Kubernetes is the platform of the future.

  • 48.7% considering a change - The Register
  • 44.9% considering migrating to Open Source - The Register
  • Containers per company doubled between 2023 and 2025 - The CNCF
  • By 2028, 95% of new AI deployments will use Kubernetes, up from 30% today (aug 2025) - Gartner

Compliance Considerations & Concerns:

Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)

The Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), which became law in February 2025, sets demanding operational resilience standards, specifically necessitating rapid recovery with minimal data loss. The fallback Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of two hours requires automated recovery mechanisms that are difficult to achieve in legacy environments. Kubernetes provides the platform and tools (like Portworx for DR - Demo) to bring this level of automated resilience within reach.

Note: Explore this topic from a technology resilience perspective in Anthony’s Cyen Webinar: Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the Licensing & Support Pressure

  • The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), fully applicable by December 2027, mandates that software providers (and by extension, their users) must “address and remediate vulnerabilities without delay.”

  • VMware’s stance is that they will provide Security updates for any CVE with a severity of 9 or above to all perpetual license holders. However, you’ll notice above that the CRA does not distinguish CVEs based on their score.

  • There’s an impending tension here: VMware has discontinued the ability to renew Support and Subscription (SnS) for Perpetual Licenses, forcing a shift to an all-in-one annual subscription at a substantial cost increase (AT&T saw a 1050% quote). This leads to a point, in the near term, where organisations must adopt the new cost structure, migrate away (which takes time), or face the risk of substantial fines (2.5% of global turnover or €15m).

  • By contrast, Kubernetes is used by thousands of organisations that contribute to rapid shared remediation facilitated by the CNCF, where a Kubernetes distribution is used with an ‘Open Core’ (as Kubermatic is), these CVE fixes can be pulled from upstream as soon as they’re available.

Note: For a primer on the CRA, view CYEN’s infographic

Migrate to Kubernetes - The Technical Demos

Demo 1 - Beyond VMware - Warm Lift and Shift

In our first demo, we show how a warm migration takes place. Along the way, I explain a few of the changes to approach, the key steps and show the system emerging on the other end. This makes use of a fork of forklift (get in touch for more info).

In this practical demonstration (jump in at 17:27), we show how to execute a Warm Lift & Shift migration, a critical first step for moving monolithic Virtual Machines to a Cloud Native platform like KubeVirt. By continuously syncing the VM’s disk data in the background (using a fork of the open-source Forklift migration tool), we successfully moved the servers to the Kubernetes solution provided by Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP).

The final cutover requires only a brief outage (<10 min) to sync the last changes (the ‘delta’). Along the way, Anthony explains the key approach changes, infrastructure mapping steps, and shows the system successfully emerging on the other side.

Get in touch for more information on the specific tooling used.

Demo 2 - Beyond VMs - Online Micro-Service Migration

David takes us through a Demo (jump in at 22:40) of how to think about the path beyond the VMs migration into Kubernetes Virtualisation, looking down the road to moving parts out, service-by-service, into the Cloud Native side of Kubernetes. He unpacks several of the techniques and principles in this approachable and insightful walkthrough from a seasoned technical leader. At the end of the process, we’ve migrated (without causing downtime) an app’s front-end services from a VM to Cloud Native containers running in Kubernetes.

Are your legacy applications holding you back?

Discover how containerisation and cloud-native patterns can modernise your existing applications. Our three-week assessment validates practical migration approaches that reduce operational complexity while maintaining business continuity.

See if modern infrastructure patterns can solve your deployment challenges and enable the multi-cloud flexibility your customers demand, without compromising the stability your business relies on.

Case Study: Unifying Silos in National Telco

The migration path we’ve demonstrated moves from a VMware-centric estate to Cloud Native Virtualisation, and is one successfully executed by several Kubermatic clients.

Here, we explore the journey of a major European National Telecommunications Provider. This Telco faced the critical challenge of managing disparate technology silos, spanning their IT application estate and traditional Virtualisation infrastructure.

They utilised both Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP) and Kubermatic Virtualisation to unify their entire operational platform, allowing them to run all workloads (VMs and Containers) on a single pane of glass.

This achieved multiple strategic returns:

  • Significant Financial Savings through license cost avoidance.
  • Infrastructure Efficiency via Virtual Clusters, which reduced operational complexity and infrastructure waste.
  • Accelerated Development by democratising Kubernetes through self-service provisioning.

Most importantly, this project future-proofed their estate, creating a consistent foundation that is ready to support upcoming technological waves. Link to Case Study

How many Engineers are required to change a Platform?

To outline how we get this in place with companies, we explored the people who are needed in a pilot. We explore how to consider the trade-offs ‘Enabling’ vs ‘Hiring’, leaning towards ‘Enabling’ in most scenarios where the complexity of your application landscape makes existing team members particularly needed.

We learned that to pull off a pilot, it would take about two people’s time over a month, spread between four to six team members. Options were shared for developing from a ‘Pilot to Production’ and an extended 90-day pilot is also possible. The value of this work is not just to prove out the technology but also to establish the essential skills, tooling, documentation, and comfort for the teams involved to enable a move to a Cloud Native Platform.

What will it cost to find out?

Finally, we explored the costs for proving out this solution for your specific needs. The initial investment for a comprehensive Kubernetes Virtualisation Pilot, along with full implementation and reporting, is priced at £20,000 (assuming Kubernetes is in place)

If Kubernetes is not currently in use within your environment, a further £10,000 investment will be required. This supplementary cost covers the necessary effort to stand up a foundational Kubernetes environment and orient your key team members on its core operations, ensuring a stable platform for the virtualisation pilot to run on.

Regardless of the final investment, this cost is strategically allocated to ensure a definitive outcome. We ensure that through this process, the combined team at work closely with Portworx by Pure Storage, and Kubermatic to develop and execute with the following deliverables:

In short, this initial investment buys you not just a technology proof-of-concept, but a path to platform and skill modernisation.

What Next?

Do get in touch to discuss your specific needs: Contact Us

Finally, from David O’Dwyer, Daniel Banche and myself, Anthony Hodson. Thank you for taking an interest in this series. Do connect, and feel free to ask questions.

All resources from the series are shared on our mini-site bit.ly/vm-kube.

This blog is part of our VMware Migration series, we recommend reading the rest of the posts in the series:

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