Darryl van der Peijl
Hardware is reaching end-of-life. VMware licenses are going up 30 to 300 percent. For many IT departments, this means two investments at once. Or it’s the moment to make the switch.
Servers are five years old. Contracts are expiring. Then the quote arrives at twice the price. The old VMware licensing model no longer exists. The result: organisations now pay for components they don’t even use. Where you could once license selectively, you now have to buy the full bundle. So the question becomes: replace the hardware and swallow the new prices? Or is this the moment to migrate?
Normally, IT departments avoid big changes. Too risky, too much work, too little time. But something is different now: the budget already exists. Hardware needs replacing. The investment is happening anyway.
The question isn’t whether money gets spent, but what it gets spent on. That makes this a strategic moment. Organisations can choose replacement as usual (new hardware, higher licenses, muddle through for five more years). Or they can choose modernisation.
Azure Local offers infrastructure that runs locally but stays cloud-connected. The control and predictability of your own hardware, with Azure innovation. No separate VMware contracts with unpredictable price hikes. Licenses run through your Azure subscription.
The difference isn’t just cost. With Azure Local, organisations don’t just run virtual machines, they also run containers and Azure services. Infrastructure as Code becomes the standard rather than the exception. IT teams learn cloud-native ways of working, on their own premises.
This matters for organisations that need to invest in skills over the coming years anyway. Cloud-native will be the standard in five years. Teams can retrain now during migration, or later under pressure.
Tools like Veeam support Azure Local. This means virtual machines move without reinstalling applications. The team works with familiar processes while getting to know the new platform.
The biggest objection we hear: our people know VMware, not Azure. Fair point, we get it. But that team needs to grow with the times anyway. The question isn’t whether it’s possible, but when to start. Migration is the moment when retraining happens naturally, not as a separate exercise later.
Organisations with hardware that still has three years left and are happy with VMware can wait. But for those who need to invest now anyway, this is a strategic choice. Choose a platform that moves with the future, not a hypervisor stuck in the past.
Want to know if it’s right for you? Come have a coffee with us or join one of our Azure Local lunches.
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