Legacy Infrastructure repurposing Solution for VMware Migration to Other Platforms

In today’s rapidly changing wave of digital transformation, the pace of enterprise IT architecture updates has significantly accelerated. However, a widespread and often overlooked issue is that a large amount of existing infrastructure resources remain underutilized. According to IDC’s 2023 data, up to 43% of enterprise server resources have utilization rates below 30%. A survey by the Uptime Institute also found that 30% of servers in the U.S. are in a “comatose” state, meaning they have not provided service information or computing services for six months or longer. Globally, the resulting resource waste exceeds hundreds of billions of dollars.

As Broadcom adjusts VMware’s product sales model, leading to increased user costs, more enterprises are beginning to migrate VMware virtual machines to new platforms. During this migration process, many users request that new service providers utilize their existing infrastructure to save costs.

In this context, “Legacy Infrastructure repurposing” is no longer just a stopgap measure to reduce costs; it is evolving into a critical path for balancing technological innovation with business rationality and practicing sustainable development. Through advanced technologies such as intelligent scheduling algorithms and hybrid cloud orchestration, seemingly outdated physical servers, traditional storage arrays, and even out-of-warranty network equipment can be revitalized into a “second life cycle,” continuing to contribute value to enterprises.

Based on its experience serving over 600 customers migrating from VMware to ZStack, ZStack found that almost every customer’s infrastructure presents a complex scenario of multi-brand, cross-generational coexistence. How to maximize the utilization of these legacy infrastructures is a core concern for all customers considering VMware to ZStack migration. Therefore, providing effective legacy infrastructure repurposing capabilities has become a “must-answer question” for IT service providers when facing customers.

Core Challenges and Requirements for Legacy Infrastructure repurposing

In the pursuit of IT modernization and cost reduction, enterprises face multiple challenges related to legacy infrastructure repurposing:

Pain Points in Enterprise IT

• High server resource idle rates: As mentioned earlier, a large number of server resources are underutilized. For example, IDC data shows that 43% of enterprise server resources have utilization rates below 30%. A specific example is a new retail enterprise that purchased high-end GPU servers for promotions but found their idle rate reaching 76% during regular operations. This inefficiency leads to significant resource waste and unnecessary costs.
• Increased operational complexity due to multi-brand, cross-generational hardware coexistence: With the long-term accumulation of IT infrastructure, data centers often contain servers, storage, and network equipment from different brands and generations. The varying management methods for these heterogeneous hardware greatly increase the complexity and workload for operations teams.
• Conflict between hardware upgrade cycles and business continuity requirements: The lifecycle and upgrades of hardware equipment are inevitable, but traditional hardware upgrades often require downtime, which sharply conflicts with the high demands for continuity and availability in critical business systems.

Key Requirements for Legacy Infrastructure repurposing

To effectively achieve legacy infrastructure repurposing, an excellent cloud platform or virtualization solution must possess the following core capabilities:

• Cross-brand compatibility: Ability to manage devices from different hardware manufacturers, breaking brand barriers.
• Unified management of cross-generational hardware: Ability to integrate servers and storage devices from different generations into a unified management platform.
• Resource pooling and scheduling capabilities: Ability to effectively pool heterogeneous and legacy hardware resources and allocate them on-demand through intelligent scheduling algorithms to improve overall resource utilization.

ZStack ZSphere’s Legacy Infrastructure repurposing Technical Architecture

As ZStack’s core virtualization platform, ZStack ZSphere provides robust technical support for legacy infrastructure repurposing, with its design fully considering the characteristics of enterprises’ existing heterogeneous IT environments.

(ZStack Compatibility List)

Hardware Compatibility Design

ZStack ZSphere offers extensive hardware compatibility, which is the foundation for legacy infrastructure repurposing. It supports mainstream server, storage, and network equipment brands such as DELL, HP, HUAWEI, Inspur, CISCO, NetApp, and H3C. More importantly, it is compatible with CPUs from different generations, such as Intel from Ice Lake to Arrow Lake and AMD from Zen1 to Zen4. This broad and deep compatibility allows enterprises to maximize the retention and utilization of existing hardware investments rather than forcing large-scale hardware replacements. Users can visit ZStack’s compatibility list for more detailed information. (https://www.zstack-cloud.com/compatibilty-list/)

Heterogeneous Resource Pooling Engine

ZStack ZSphere’s heterogeneous resource pooling engine can unify the management of computing resources with different architectures, including X86, ARM, and even other non-86 chips. Through its powerful resource pooling capabilities, ZStack can integrate legacy and new hardware resources of different types into a virtual resource pool for unified allocation and scheduling. Its built-in intelligent load-balancing algorithm can detect the performance differences of underlying hardware, preventing all workloads from being placed on legacy hardware and ensuring smooth business operations.

Hardware Acceleration Optimization

To further enhance the performance of legacy hardware, ZStack ZSphere provides a series of hardware acceleration optimization technologies. It can improve the virtualization efficiency of legacy CPUs. Additionally, by supporting GPU passthrough and hybrid virtualization modes, ZStack can reactivate decommissioned or idle GPU servers, allowing them to play new roles in scenarios such as AI inference, giving legacy hardware new life.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How does ZStack reduce the total cost of VMware to ZStack migration through legacy infrastructure repurposing?

A: ZStack achieves this by extensively supporting enterprises’ existing multi-brand, cross-generational servers, storage, and network equipment, enabling these hardware components to be integrated into the new cloud platform without being discarded. This maximizes resource utilization and avoids the substantial upfront investment required for large-scale new hardware procurement due to VMware to ZStack migration, significantly reducing the overall TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). At the same time, improving resource utilization itself also lowers operational costs.

Q2: Are my legacy servers, storage, and network devices compatible with the ZStack platform for legacy infrastructure repurposing?

A: ZStack ZSphere is designed with strong hardware compatibility. It supports mainstream brands such as DELL, HP, HUAWEI, and Inspur for servers, storage, and network devices, and is compatible with CPUs from different generations. We recommend visiting ZStack’s official compatibility list (https://www.zstack-cloud.com/compatibilty-list/) to check whether your specific device models are supported or contact ZStack experts for detailed consultation.

Q3: After migrating from VMware to ZStack, how can existing business systems ensure high availability and stability?

A: ZStack ZSphere provides the high reliability and stability required for core financial transaction systems. The platform offers comprehensive self-healing mechanisms, including management service HA, network HA, virtual machine HA, and fault detection at both the virtual machine and business levels. These mechanisms ensure rapid recovery and continuous operation of business systems even if underlying hardware fails, guaranteeing business continuity.

Q4: Beyond legacy infrastructure repurposing, in what aspects does ZStack surpass VMware?

A: In addition to its significant advantages in legacy infrastructure repurposing, ZStack delivers an exceptional experience in multiple areas. ZStack products are highly mature, with simple and rapid deployment—even starting with just one physical server. The low operational threshold, full graphical interface, and rich API interfaces greatly simplify daily management. One-click seamless upgrades are supported without interrupting business operations. The platform’s architecture is robust and stable, supporting power-off recovery. At the same time, ZStack follows an independent innovation path in cloud computing, supporting heterogeneous and independent technology ecosystems.

Conclusion

In the pursuit of digital efficiency and cost-effectiveness, legacy infrastructure repurposing has become a critical component of enterprise IT strategies. With its ZSphere virtualization platform specifically designed for complex heterogeneous environments, ZStack provides robust hardware compatibility, heterogeneous resource pooling, and hardware acceleration optimization capabilities. This enables enterprises to efficiently rejuvenate existing IT assets during VMware to ZStack migration, significantly reducing TCO.

ZStack has demonstrated its ability to improve resource utilization, simplify operations, and ensure high availability and stability through legacy infrastructure repurposing in multiple successful cases. For enterprises looking to upgrade their IT architecture and transition to the cloud while controlling costs, ZStack is a trustworthy and practical VMware to ZStack solution.

Want to learn whether your existing hardware can be revitalized through ZStack? Click to view more ZStack compatible product information