Security Restructuring and Continuous Compliance Assurance in VMware Migration

Many organizations are considering migrating their existing IT systems from VMware virtual machines to other platforms that offer greater flexibility, efficiency, or align with specific strategic needs. Facing this important yet complex task, IT professionals often ask: What should be considered when migrating from VMware to another platform? How to migrate from VMware to another platform? What are the operational guidelines for VMware migration? What VMware migration tools are available? However, while focusing on technical details and operational processes, one often underestimated but crucial area is migration security—how to ensure the entire migration process and the post-migration system remain secure and compliant? This article will delve into the security challenges, strategy restructuring, and compliance assurance in VMware to ZStack migration, helping you navigate the migration journey with confidence.

Core Challenges and Security Considerations in VM Migration

VM migration is a key technology in data center management, enabling the transfer of running virtual machines from one physical host to another without service interruption, thereby achieving goals such as load balancing, failover, and hardware maintenance upgrades. The core of this technology lies in ensuring storage data consistency, seamless network connection switching, and accurate memory state replication.

However, virtual machine migration brings multiple security risks that cannot be ignored. Data leakage is one such risk, where unencrypted disk images or temporary files may be intercepted during transmission. Another risk is service interruption, where improper migration planning or execution issues may compromise business continuity. Additionally, virtual machine impersonation and malware implantation are potential threats, as attackers may insert malicious code or impersonate virtual machines during migration. These security threats may stem from internal improper operations or privilege abuse, or from external network attacks and social engineering. Therefore, when planning VMware to ZStack migration, security must be placed at the core, with comprehensive risk assessment and response strategies developed.

In-Depth Analysis of Security Model Differences

Migrating from a VMware environment to a new platform is not just a change in technology stack but also a profound restructuring of the security model. VMware vSphere provides its own security features, such as network segmentation and access control, while the target platform—whether public cloud, KVM-based private cloud, or other commercial solutions—has its unique security framework and shared responsibility model.

At the network level, VMware’s security mechanisms may rely on traditional firewall rules and virtual switch configurations. In contrast, the new platform may favor more granular controls, such as distributed firewalls and security groups, to achieve fine-grained filtering of east-west and north-south traffic. The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform provides network traffic access control capabilities through distributed firewalls and security groups, ensuring network traffic isolation and security.

In terms of identity authentication and access control, migration also means transitioning from VMware’s original user management system to the new platform’s IAM (Identity and Access Management) strategy. The new platform typically offers stronger identity authentication mechanisms, including the effective use of commercial cryptography, to build a network security cryptographic barrier. ZStack ZSphere enhances data and account security through commercial data encryption and identity authentication, supporting the effective use of commercial cryptography to construct a robust network security defense.

Differences in encryption mechanisms are equally significant. VMware may provide storage-layer encryption, while the new platform may require reevaluation and implementation of encryption strategies for data transmission, data at rest, and backup data. For example, ZStack ZSphere has built-in cryptographic modules that meet compliance requirements for commercial cryptographic application security evaluations.

Protecting the Security “Window Period” During Migration

During VMware to ZStack migration, data in transit and temporary storage states may expose what is known as the “security window period,” a critical time that attackers could exploit. To mitigate these windows, stringent protection strategies are required.

Encryption during data transmission is crucial. Whether through VPNs or other encrypted channels, data confidentiality and integrity in the network must be ensured. Current mainstream online migration methods typically adopt a “first full copy + continuous incremental” model, migrating source data to the target end without affecting the virtual machine’s running state, and finally synchronizing differential data through brief downtime. Although this approach reduces downtime, each snapshot operation may still impact performance.

Agent-based migration technology directly installs agent plugins within the operating system to read file system disk blocks for data transmission, avoiding performance issues caused by disk image format conversion and snapshots. This is particularly suitable for systems with high business continuity requirements, compressing business downtime to minutes. Agentless migration, while simpler to operate, relies on snapshot mechanisms that may affect business performance. Regardless of the method, the security of the migration tools themselves, along with temporary network isolation and detailed logging during migration, are key to ensuring data security. ZStack has fully considered these security requirements when providing VMware to ZStack solutions, ensuring robust and reliable migration paths.

Security Policy Translation and Restructuring

Effectively and securely mapping or converting existing VMware security policies to the new platform is a major challenge in migration work. Traditional firewall rules, access control lists, and audit policies may not be directly applicable in the new environment and may even require complete redesign.

For example, in cloud environments, security groups and IAM policies replace some traditional firewall functions, offering more flexible and dynamic access control capabilities. Micro-segmentation technology can be better implemented in the new platform, allowing fine-grained isolation of traffic between application workloads to effectively prevent lateral attacks. In this regard, ZStack ZSphere provides network-level access control through its distributed firewalls and security groups, laying the foundation for implementing micro-segmentation.

Audit policies also need reevaluation to ensure the new platform can provide logging and audit capabilities equal to or stronger than those in the VMware environment. In terms of system security, ZStack ZSphere conducts comprehensive vulnerability scans using commercial vulnerability scanning tools and promptly patches vulnerabilities to reduce attack risks, which is crucial for ensuring the post-migration system security baseline.

Continuity and Adaptation of Compliance Requirements

After completing VMware to ZStack migration, enterprises must ensure the new environment continues to meet existing and new compliance standards, such as Multi-Level Protection Scheme (MLPS), GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS. This requires in-depth evaluation of the target platform’s compliance support during the migration planning phase.

The new platform should provide clear compliance certification reports and configuration baselines to help enterprises quickly adapt and verify compliance status. Post-migration, the methods for collecting audit evidence may also change, requiring adjustments to corresponding processes and tools. ZStack ZSphere was designed with high autonomy from the ground up, from underlying code to product design to solution implementation, all meeting compliance requirements. Its built-in cryptographic modules satisfy commercial cryptographic application security evaluations and provide comprehensive solutions that meet Level 3 information system security protection requirements, significantly simplifying the difficulty for enterprises to maintain compliance post-migration.

Switching and Integration of Security Toolchains

The VMware ecosystem includes a series of mature security tools. Migrating to a new platform means selecting and integrating new security toolchains to replace or supplement existing solutions. These may include Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM), next-generation firewalls, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) integrations.

Choosing tools that deeply integrate with the new platform and provide a unified security view is crucial. ZStack ZSphere offers comprehensive protection for user businesses through its “four-level security framework.” This includes network security (distributed firewalls, security groups), business security (agentless virtualization security protection engine to promptly detect and eliminate threats), system security (comprehensive vulnerability scanning and timely patching), and data and account security (commercial data encryption, identity authentication). These built-in security capabilities reduce reliance on external complex toolchain integrations, helping to build a simpler and more efficient security management system.

Image and Supply Chain Security

In VMware environments, virtual machine template management is an important part of deploying security baselines. After VMware to ZStack migration, security hardening, vulnerability scanning, and supply chain management of base images become particularly important. Base images on the new platform must undergo strict review and scanning to ensure they contain no known vulnerabilities or malicious code. At the same time, all third-party components used must undergo supply chain security management to prevent potential risks. ZStack ZSphere’s system security features, such as comprehensive vulnerability scanning and timely patching using commercial vulnerability scanning tools, can effectively support post-migration image security management.

ZStack: Empowering Every Enterprise with Its Own Cloud

ZStack is a leading provider focused on the research and development of cloud computing software and hardware. Guided by its mission to “empower every enterprise with its own cloud,” ZStack has delivered advanced cloud technologies to over 4,000 enterprise users across more than 30 countries and regions.

ZStack offers comprehensive data center infrastructure solutions covering scenarios from core to edge, cloud to cloud-native, and data management to artificial intelligence. Notably, ZStack AIOS, its private AI infrastructure platform, made its debut on February 2, 2025, fully supporting enterprise AI applications, including computing power scheduling, AI large model training and inference, and AI application service development. It is compatible with various CPU/GPU models, including Hygon, Ascend, NVIDIA, and Intel, and supports large models such as DeepSeek V3/R1/Janus Pro.

ZStack’s core philosophy is productization, and it pioneered the “4S” standards: Simple, Strong, Scalable, and Smart. The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform is an outstanding embodiment of ZStack’s “4S” philosophy, providing a user experience consistent with VMware virtualization, along with intelligent unified operations, smooth V2V migration, and high stability and security. ZStack ZSphere was included in the “Leader” quadrant in CCID Consulting’s “2024 China Virtualization Market Research Report,” further demonstrating its leading position in the industry.

ZStack provides VMware to ZStack solutions, covering three major migration paths: server virtualization, private cloud, and hyper-convergence. These solutions have successfully helped over 600 enterprise customers significantly reduce costs, making ZStack a reliable choice for VMware to ZStack migration.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: How to maximize data and account security during VMware to ZStack migration?

A1: Ensuring data and account security hinges on implementing multi-layered defense strategies. This includes using encryption technologies during data transmission to prevent interception and ensuring the security of migration tools themselves. On the target platform, identity authentication mechanisms should be strengthened, such as leveraging ZStack ZSphere’s commercial data encryption and identity authentication features to build a robust network security cryptographic barrier, effectively preventing data leaks and unauthorized access.

Q2: After VMware to ZStack migration, how to ensure the system continues to meet industry compliance requirements?

A2: Post-migration, compliance assurance requires comprehensive compliance evaluation and configuration of the new platform. The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform was designed with high autonomy, providing solutions that meet Level 3 information system security protection requirements and featuring built-in cryptographic modules that support commercial cryptographic application security evaluations. This helps enterprises quickly adapt and verify compliance in the new environment.

Q3: When performing VMware to ZStack migration, is agentless or agent-based migration more secure?

A3: Both migration modes have their focus. Agentless migration is relatively simpler, but frequent snapshot operations may impact VMDK performance. Agent-based migration directly reads file system disk blocks, avoiding snapshot-related performance issues and enabling higher-frequency data transmission to reduce downtime, making it more suitable for performance-sensitive businesses. From a security perspective, both require encrypted data transmission and secure migration tools. The choice should consider business requirements for performance, downtime, and operational complexity.

Q4: What unique advantages does ZStack ZSphere offer in post-migration security management for VMware to ZStack migration?

A4: ZStack ZSphere provides unique advantages through its comprehensive “four-level security framework.” This includes network security (distributed firewalls, security groups), business security (agentless virtualization security protection engine), system security (comprehensive vulnerability scanning and timely patching), and data and account security (commercial data encryption, identity authentication). These built-in, synergistic security capabilities enable enterprises to achieve a more unified, efficient, and autonomous security management experience after completing VMware to ZStack migration.