Mirantis has launched a VMware migration offer that pairs Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes with free implementation, full migration, and OpsCare Plus managed operations for eligible customers facing VMware Cloud Foundation renewals. The offer targets the migration project cost as the primary barrier to switching, not the platform subscription. Buyers should verify eligibility criteria in writing and confirm SAN driver support before committing.
What Is Covered in This Article:
- The Mirantis VMware migration offer and its four components
- How free migration and reuse of existing hardware lower the cost of leaving VMware
- The questions buyers should resolve before committing, and how Mirantis compares with other VMware alternatives
The News: On October 27, 2026, Mirantis announced a VMware migration offer for organizations moving workloads to its OpenStack-based private cloud ahead of VMware Cloud Foundation renewals. The offer combines Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes, implementation and migration services, and OpsCare Plus managed operations with an uptime SLA of up to 99.99%. Eligible customers receive a free two-day architecture discovery workshop, free implementation, free full migration, and multi-year pricing. Migration runs as a packaged module, typically five weeks, scoped to each environment. Mirantis designs each deployment around existing servers, SAN arrays, and network fabrics. One cloud infrastructure provider facing a 600% VMware price increase has a migration underway across three data center sites.
Mirantis Bundles Free Migration With Managed OpenStack to Lure VMware Defectors
Analyst Take: Mirantis is targeting the migration project itself, not the platform subscription, as the real barrier to VMware exits. By absorbing implementation and full migration costs for eligible customers, the offer removes the budget and risk obstacle that has kept many organizations on VMware despite rising renewal costs. Pairing that with managed operations addresses the second major objection: the staffing burden of running OpenStack.
The Mirantis VMware Migration Offer Removes the Cost of the Migration Project
For most VMware customers, moving hundreds or thousands of virtual machines, retraining staff, and rebuilding runbooks costs more time and carries more risk than the license itself. Mirantis targets that obstacle directly by giving eligible customers implementation and full migration at no cost. The release does not define eligibility, and buyers should get the criteria in writing before planning around them. Mirantis also offers to schedule each migration around the customer’s VCF renewal date, which reduces the window of double-spend. The five-week migration module covers one scoped environment, so estates with heavy NSX networking or hundreds of application dependencies will require several modules.
Managed Operations Address OpenStack’s Staffing Problem
OpenStack’s reputation for operational complexity has kept enterprises away from it for a decade. OpsCare Plus shifts that burden to Mirantis with 24/7 managed operations, so customers do not need to build an in-house OpenStack team before migrating. That trades one dependency for another. Customers leaving Broadcom should ask what exiting OpsCare Plus would involve and which architectures qualify for the full 99.99% SLA. The open source base of Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes makes a future exit more realistic than leaving a proprietary stack, which matters for organizations that are specifically trying to reduce single-vendor exposure.
Reusing Existing SANs Lowers Cost but Needs Verification
Hyperconverged VMware alternatives typically work best on new hardware. Mirantis designs deployments around existing servers, SAN arrays, and network fabrics, which keeps capital spending down during a migration that is already absorbing budget. However, support for a specific array depends on its OpenStack storage driver and on the array vendor’s support for that driver. Buyers should confirm driver support for each array model during the discovery workshop before treating hardware reuse as a guaranteed cost saving.
OpenStack Brings a Cloud Operating Model That vSphere Teams Must Learn
Mirantis OpenStack for Kubernetes is a private cloud with projects, quotas, and APIs. That is a different job from administering vSphere clusters. Organizations that want self-service infrastructure for development teams benefit from that model. Organizations that want a like-for-like replacement for vCenter administration face more change and should also evaluate platforms closer to the vSphere experience. The single customer reference in the release is still in progress, so there are no completed outcomes to evaluate yet.
Mirantis Competes in a Crowded VMware Exit Market
Nutanix, Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, Platform9, Canonical, Microsoft Azure Local, and HPE Morpheus VM Essentials all target VMware customers, and several offer their own migration tooling and incentives. Mirantis differentiates with a single contract that covers both migration and ongoing operation of an open-source platform. That positioning fits a broader enterprise shift away from single-vendor lock-in, where open infrastructure provides an easier exit the next time a supplier changes terms. IT teams with a VCF renewal in the next 18 months should treat the free discovery workshop as low-cost due diligence: it produces a hardware compatibility assessment and a migration plan that are useful whether or not they ultimately choose Mirantis.
What to Watch:
- Eligibility criteria: whether Mirantis publishes clear qualification thresholds and how many migrations it can staff concurrently if demand rises ahead of renewal dates
- Completed reference outcomes: whether the three-site cloud provider migration finishes on schedule and whether Mirantis publishes outcome data to validate the five-week module at scale
- Broadcom retention pricing: whether renewal discounts from Broadcom for customers evaluating alternatives narrow the cost gap the Mirantis offer depends on
- SAN driver coverage: which array models receive confirmed OpenStack driver support as more discovery workshops surface diverse storage environments
Read more details about the announcement on the company website.
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Author Information
Alastair has made a twenty-year career out of helping people understand complex IT infrastructure and how to build solutions that fulfil business needs. Much of his career has included teaching official training courses for vendors, including HPE, VMware, and AWS. Alastair has written hundreds of analyst articles and papers exploring products and topics around on-premises infrastructure and virtualization and getting the most out of public cloud and hybrid infrastructure. Alastair has also been involved in community-driven, practitioner-led education through the vBrownBag podcast and the vBrownBag TechTalks.
