In late 2023, Broadcom officially completed the acquisition of VMware in pursuit of its mission to create the world’s leading infrastructure technology company. Since then, a cutthroat focus on enabling enterprises to create and modernize private and hybrid cloud environments has quickly resulted in Broadcom discontinuing more than 56 VMware products and platforms. Industry favorites like VMware NSX, VMware vSphere+, and VMware Aria Suite have all been axed among many others. And if that wasn’t enough, for the products that Broadcom has decided to retain in the VMware portfolio, perpetual licenses are no longer valid, and all active customers have been hastily pushed to subscription-based pricing (complete with extortionate late fees).
By now, you’ve probably encountered at least a few industry horror stories regarding high profile enterprise customers and the egregious impact this acquisition has had on their VMware bill. E.g. AT&T has taken legal action in response to its proposed 1,050% increase to its annual VMware expense. A 10x rise in price is absolutely absurd for any company to have to deal with, but any abrupt increase in pricing can be disruptive for IT budgets, especially when a particular technology is so engrained in your organization’s critical infrastructure.
Predictably, for technology users who are not hopelessly locked into VMware solutions, the Broadcom acquisition is the emphatic end of the road for their relationship with VMware. These transitioning customers are turning to alternative virtualization providers and hyperconverged infrastructure vendors, and industry surveys suggest that the majority of those moving off VMware are actively considering open-source solutions as well.
While moving to open-source virtualization undoubtedly represents a positive step towards reducing licensing expenses and architecting increasingly customized solutions, a forced transition away from VMware should be viewed as an opportunity for an even greater degree of digital transformation for your organization. Especially for IT teams with SQL Server under management, they should set their sights on redefining the flexibility and scalability of their database environments.
The easiest and most secure way to accomplish this: containers.
The Simplified Path to SQL Server Container Deployment
For the last couple years, the IT industry has ceded database container ambitions to some understandable hesitations. Critical SQL Server workloads require top-tier, 5 nines uptime and bulletproof security that can span across heterogenous infrastructure. The idea of layering Kubernetes (K8s) into this equation compromises the confidence in attaining acceptable levels of high availability (HA) and security for these workloads. Not to mention, Kubernetes has garnered a reputation as a particularly complex container orchestration technology, especially for SQL Server pros who often have little to no experience with Kubernetes or comparable technologies.
DH2i has tackled these hurdles head-on in recent years with various technology innovations, and has ultimately paved the easiest, most secure path ever to highly available SQL Server container deployment. The following capabilities have culminated in this user-friendly path to digital transformation available for VMware-departing IT teams.
Overcoming Kubernetes Deployment Complexity
DxOperator by DH2i has quickly become the industry’s preferred SQL Server Operator for Kubernetes, and there’s good reason for that. This technology was created in direct collaboration with the Microsoft SQL Server team to unlock an easy and optimized path to SQL Server container deployments. DxOperator provides:
- Maximum customization for SQL Server Availability Groups (AGs) deployed in Kubernetes, even allowing users to toggle between sync and async replication.
- Full automation to easily deploy your SQL Server AG to your exact specifications in Kubernetes, and across any mix of disparate infrastructure in a matter of minutes.
- Cohesive integration with supplementary orchestration technologies like Rancher Prime by SUSE for users that want a graphical interface to further simplify Kubernetes orchestration.
Ensuring Peak SQL Server High Availability in Kubernetes
DxEnterprise (DxE) Smart High Availability Clustering software has an unambiguous hold on the industry’s lowest downtime for SQL Server Kubernetes deployments due to one critical capability. DxE is the only HA solution in existence that can facilitate fully automatic database level failover of SQL Server AGs in Kubernetes. Ultimately, this technology unlocks equivalent 5 nines uptime levels for native and containerized deployments.
Integrating Software-Defined Perimeter and Partner Ecosystem Security
DxEnterprise comes fully outfitted with built-in software-defined perimeter capability. The comprehensive, infrastructure-agnostic software package enables users to connect from anywhere to anywhere with encrypted, zero trust network access (ZTNA) tunnels. These highly available, application-level connections ensure that your SQL Server workloads remain secure throughout the migration, regardless of platform or infrastructure.
The Ability to Modernize at Your Own Pace
Perhaps one of the greatest proprietary capabilities of DxEnterprise for IT pros endeavoring into a large-scale migration from VMware is the software’s ability to help you segment your container migration project into comfortable chunks. DxE provides unparalleled flexibility for your organization to have SQL Server instances on Windows, Linux instances, and containerized workloads all clustered together in a single Availability Group, regardless of the underlying infrastructure. In other words, organizations can migrate databases from virtual machines (VMs) to containers while keeping all workloads unified within the same high availability framework through the full duration of the process.
The 3-step migration process looks like this:
- Deploy a new Kubernetes container (in a SQL Server sidecar configuration) in an existing AG in a matter of minutes.
- Pull existing VM workload and new container into a unified AG.
- Use SQL Server database mirroring to migrate databases from existing infrastructure to new containerized deployment.
Regardless of platforms and infrastructure, DH2i software maintains peak uptime and network security through the duration of this migration process and beyond, giving IT pros the confidence to reap the benefits of containers for even their most critical workloads.
If your organization has been forced into a departure from VMware due to price hikes or license restructuring, there is no better time than now to pursue digital transformation. Containers represent a powerful path to massive cost savings, peak resource utilization, and upgrades in scalability and flexibility. The greater technology ecosystem has evolved to enable safe containerization for even the most critical workloads, and now everything is in place to make sure your SQL Server container deployments are just as secure, reliable, and performant as their native instance counterparts.
Reach out to [email protected] if you’re interested in seeing the software in action or have any questions.
