Animals in the wild migrate for a number of reasons, including escaping harsh environmental conditions. Similarly, IT organizations, especially as of late, have been moving workloads to escape the harsh licensing conditions brought on by VMware. Fortunately, there are more and more examples of companies that have successfully made this move. And this latest one comes from a place that understands the challenges of a harsh environment. The company P/F Elektron, a provider of IT services in the Faroe Islands, recently undertook a comprehensive IT infrastructure upgrade to ensure continuous, high performance service delivery. By partnering with Hewlett Packard Enterprise and transitioning from VMware to Microsoft Hyper‑V, Elektron not only reduced licensing costs and operational expenditures but also bolstered reliability and scalability for its mission‑critical applications.
Embracing the need for change
When serving the needs of organizations operating in isolated locations, resilient digital infrastructure is more than a competitive edge—it’s a lifeline. Elektron plays a pivotal role in powering essential public and financial services across this challenging environment. However, recent changes in the licensing structure of their traditional VMware environment compelled Elektron to reassess their IT strategy.
“We needed a solution that was both cost‑effective and suited our largely Microsoft‑based environment,” explains Ragnar Joensen, head of technology at Elektron. This sets the stage for a significant migration effort. Elektron recognized that the demands of their in-house and managed environments could benefit not just from enhanced performance and availability but also simplified management for their lean in‑house IT team. The decision to shift to Microsoft Hyper‑V was driven by the watershed moment of surging virtualization costs, as well as the long-term goal to establish an integrated, adaptable platform, able to sustain data and business growth.
The instinct to migrate
For years, VMware vSphere has been the dominant choice for server virtualization in data centers, but now many organizations are reevaluating their IT infrastructure. It’s been documented how the majority of companies are considering how to migrate toward virtualization platforms that better align with their evolving business needs. And the top reason companies are moving now is the abrupt and significant rise in VMware licensing costs.
The way companies move from VMware is usually a function of the destination. Top migration methods include established third-party migration tools, backup products such as HPE Zerto Software, and migration features of products native to target platforms such as System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). Destinations include leading hybrid cloud solutions such as Azure Local for newer and edge-oriented apps, as well as established OS environments such as Windows Server with Hyper-V for traditional core data center workloads.
See the Solving your VMware transformation challenges with HPE business white paper on why and how companies have been handling these virtual machine (VM) transformation projects.
Anatomy of a migration
There are established methodologies and best practices for converting production VMware VMs to Hyper-V. One popular approach is by using the native Windows product, SCVMM.
Many organizations take advantage of using the trial version of SCVMM, which is the same ISO base as the full version and is only turned into a trial by skipping the addition of a license key. This trial version functions for 90 days and can be renewed to extend an additional 90 days.
This conversion requires a system with sufficient CPU and memory to host SCVMM. But a key benefit of SCVMM, besides being well established after almost 20 years in the market, is that it scales well and can handle up to 25,000 VMs and 1000 physical hosts under management.
In addition to the SCVMM installation, there’s the installation of a Windows Failover Cluster to help ensure the availability of the hosted Hyper-V VMs. This is typically a multinode cluster connected to SAN-based storage, which most enterprises already have and are familiar with.
The final key element of the solution is Windows Server itself. It delivers the most important benefit, the overall licensing fee savings. Most organizations already own Windows Server licenses and may only need to upgrade from Standard to Datacenter. Hyper-V is bundled with Windows Server, so there is no separate software or additional licensing cost. Windows Server Datacenter licenses allow an unlimited number of VMs to be run on a single server, so this provides a convenient and affordable way to accommodate virtualized workloads at scale.
Measurable benefits and operational gains
Mikkel Hansen, Technical Architect at Elektron, highlights another major benefit of the new setup: “Compared to our old infrastructure, we have better performance now at a lower cost. The transition was easy, and we’ve improved how we distribute resources, which translates to faster services and greater efficiency for our customers.”
Their migration was based on HPE infrastructure, including HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000. It increases storage performance along with expected data availability, thanks to the 100% data availability guarantee. They also saw efficiency improvements—the upgraded storage solution operates on just 25% of the power used by its predecessor.
Cost reductions play a central role in the benefits realized from the upgrade. Shifting from VMware to Microsoft Hyper‑V has resulted in significant licensing fee savings, with monthly reductions estimated at more than US$22,000 equivalent. And with Hyper-V, along with the cloud-based interface of the HPE storage management tools, on‑prem storage management is now streamlined, where changes and expansions can be implemented rapidly with minimal disruption.
Follow the leader toward virtualization savings
Elektron provides an example of how any company can take this well-traveled route to IT savings. By transitioning from VMware to Hyper‑V and deploying the latest HPE infrastructure, including the HPE Alletra Storage MP B10000, companies can improve performance and availability and reduce cost, even in the world’s most remote regions.
Details of this customer success are captured in the Delivering reliable, high performance services to remote island businesses case study document.
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