When evaluating VMware alternatives, many users are concerned about reliability, compatibility, and the business impact of cross-platform VM migration.

• Reliability

If the migration process is unstable, it can pose significant O&M risks and may fail to complete the migration tasks within the designated time window, potentially disrupting normal business operations. To ensure migration reliability, users need to choose a technically robust and efficient migration tool. Additionally, pre-migration preparations — such as environment checks (e.g., verifying network connectivity, confirming whether the VMs to be migrated contain snapshots or virtual peripherals) and pre-migration testing — are essential to ensure the smooth execution of the official VM migration.

• Compatibility

Users should ensure the migration tool is compatible with their VMware environment, VM operating systems, and server hardware for a smooth migration. Currently, some vendors’ migration tools only support vSphere Standard Switch (VSS) rather than vSphere Distributed Switch (VDS). However, as migrating from VSS to VDS can disrupt business networks, users should test the migration tool and pick the one that supports VDS to avoid business interruption.

• Business Impact

Beyond pre-migration and compatibility checks, selecting the right migration tool is critical to minimizing business downtime. Take Arcfra Migration Tools as an example. Arcfra Migration Tools take an initial snapshot of the source VM and transfer the full snapshot copy to the target VM. During this process, the source VM can remain online and operate normally. After the full snapshot copy transfer is completed, users can choose to manually synchronize the incremental data generated during the snapshot of the source VM. Otherwise, users can directly shut down the source VM for incremental data synchronization. The advantage of manual synchronization is that most of the incremental data can be replicated while the source VM remains online, significantly reducing the subsequent downtime of the source VM for the final data synchronization.

For more information on vSphere replacement, please refer to our previous blog: Exploring VMware Alternatives? Tips for Enterprises with Varying Levels of VMware Dependency