Migrating VMware Workloads to AWS in 2025? What Enterprises Must Know First

In a recent Gartner Community Poll, 74% of the participants stated they are actively looking for VMware alternatives after the latest Broadcom changes. What are these Broadcom changes causing users to explore AWS options?

• License restructuring to subscription-only, which reduces cost control.
• Reduced access to support partners, impacting smaller clients.
• Product bundling into high-cost suites. As a result, customers pay for what they don’t use.  

However, migrating VMware workloads to AWS can take weeks or months, depending on workload complexity, migration strategy, change management, etc.

It isn’t just a matter of copying workloads from one environment to another. Organizations must evaluate which workloads are worth migrating and which migration pathway to follow and design secure landing zones.

This blog will explain what organizations should consider before migrating VMware workloads to AWS, the migration pathways, and common challenges in migrating VMware workloads to AWS. 

Why Migrate VMware to AWS?

The question isn’t “Is migrating VMware workloads to AWS worth it?” anymore. It’s “What’s the real cost of staying on VMware?”

For years, VMware provided a dependable virtualization layer for enterprise IT. But today, the business environment has changed dramatically. Legacy infrastructure is becoming a liability, security expectations have evolved, and cloud-native is the future.

With rising VMware costs and the capital required to maintain an aging infrastructure, AWS is a viable option for the following reasons.

• Pay-as-you-go pricing
• Partner-led support
• Funding and credits

Below is a concise table summarizing the most compelling reasons for migrating VMware workloads to AWS.

What Are Your Migration Options?

When migrating VMware workloads to AWS, there is no one-size-fits-all. The correct migration path for an organization will depend on the business size, technical complexity, budget, and long-term goals.

Here are the three core migration pathways businesses can choose from when migrating VMware workloads to AWS.

1. Rehost

“We need to migrate VMware workloads to AWS—fast.”

Rehosting is the most common low-cost, low-effort migration pathway that allows organizations to move VMs into EC2 without breaking dependencies. In this pathway, you replicate and boot. Rehosting makes sense if you want to avoid license renewal costs or if you want to move to AWS first, and then learn and improve your environment at your own pace. 

Advantage: It’s the quickest path to the cloud.

Disadvantage: If an app is inefficient on-prem, it will remain so in AWS until you implement a modernization plan.

 

2. Hybrid Cloud 

“We need low risk and minimal disruption.”

Organizations in highly regulated industries like banks, hospitals, and government sectors can opt for VMware Cloud on AWS. The service enables them to run their on-premises VMware environments on AWS. This migration pathway is the perfect choice for organizations with mission-critical workloads that use it as a stepping stone to modernize later. 

Advantage: No training is required as your team uses the same VMware tools. It’s the least disruptive way to migrate to AWS.

Disadvantage: It’s expensive as you pay for both VMware and the AWS infrastructure. Moreover, you will still be tied to VMware licenses and pricing models.

 

3. Replatform or Refactor

“You don’t just want to migrate—you also want to transform.”

Organizations with a strong DevOps culture use this option as they see migration as a chance to innovate and modernize legacy architecture. Replatforming allows organizations to containerize apps using Amazon ECS or EKS and replace internal services with AWS-native tools like RDS, DynamoDB, and S3. 

Advantage: You unlock cloud-native benefits such as autoscaling, managed services, and container orchestration. 

Disadvantage: Replatforming is not a sprint project. Migration timelines are longer, require strong technical understanding, and can be time-consuming. 

Want to Migrate VMware Workloads to AWS? Use This Expert Framework

Step 1: Discovery and Assessment

a) Inventory all VMware workloads

b) Use tools like AWS Migration Evaluator.

c) Categorize workloads by:

• Business criticality
• Technical complexity
• Interdependencies
• Modernization potential

Step 2: Migration Planning & Strategy

a) Define your migration goals: speed, cost, modernization 

b) Choose your migration approach:

• Rehost (lift-and-shift)
• VMware Cloud on AWS
• Replatform or refactor
• Build a phased migration plan

Step 3: Secure AWS MAP Funding (if eligible)

a) Assess if you’re eligible for AWS MAP based on workload size and type to save 25–50% on migration costs.

b) Submit the MAP proposal to AWS.

c) Plan how to use credits:

• Partner professional services
• Training
• POCs or pilots 

Step 4: Tooling Setup & Pilot Migration

a) Deploy AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) agents to source VMs.

b) Set up replication and define cutover runbooks.

c) Perform a pilot migration on 2–5 non-critical VMs.

d) Validate:

• Network connectivity
• Performance in AWS
• Logging, backups, IAM, and monitoring

Step 5: Execute migration in waves

a) Execute migration in phases grouped by:

• Application
• Business unit
• Environment 

  b) Monitor each wave for:
  

• Success
• Post-migration validation
• Performance benchmarks

Step 6: Post-Migration Stabilization

a) Ensure everything works as expected in AWS and address gaps.

• Confirm backups, logging, alerting, and IAM are fully operational.
• Tune EC2 instance sizes and storage (right-sizing).
• Optimize network traffic flow, DNS updates, and failover paths.

What are Common VMware to AWS Migration Challenges?

Where do most organizations go wrong when migrating VMware workloads to AWS? They believe migration can be handled in-house with a motivated team and a few AWS tutorials. But what often starts as a straightforward effort quickly becomes a tangled mess of delays, misconfigurations, and risks. Below are the most common challenges organizations face in-house when migrating VMware workloads to AWS.

 

1. Incomplete visibility into existing infrastructure

After years of shadow IT and undocumented changes, organizations have blind spots. They need proper discovery and dependency mapping to de-risk migrating unused VMs, breaking application dependencies, or overlooking business-critical workloads.

 

2. Choosing the wrong migration strategy

In-house teams often default to lift-and-shift because it seems convenient and fast. However, without proper workload analysis, they might lift legacy systems. Without prior migration experience, knowing which workloads should be rehosted, replatformed, containerized, or retired is hard. It leads to inefficient resource allocation, unexpected downtime, or even project abandonment.

3. Skill gaps in cloud-native operations

Running VMware on-prem is not the same as managing workloads in AWS—networking, security, IAM, automation, and monitoring all work differently. Most in-house teams lack deep AWS expertise and often underestimate how much operational change is required post-migration. When you switch from on-prem to AWS, many in-house efforts break down. Misaligned DNS, incompatible storage, last-minute firewall rules, or user authentication failures can all disrupt business continuity.

 

Why Work With an AWS Migration Partner?

Here are five practical, real-world reasons to work with an AWS Partner when migrating your VMware workloads to AWS.

1. They Know What to Migrate—and What to Leave Behind

AWS Partners don’t just lift everything into the cloud. They help you identify unused VMs, shadow IT, and legacy applications so you’re not paying to host dead weight in AWS. Real-world migrations often involve trimming 10–30% of your footprint from day one.

2. They Help You Qualify for AWS Funding

Most companies don’t realize that AWS offers Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) credits that can fund a large portion of the migration. AWS Partners know how to secure these dollars and navigate the approval process, which in-house teams usually miss entirely.

3. They Save Time

A seasoned AWS Partner can help you migrate in half the time it takes most in-house teams and with fewer surprises. Why? They’ve already solved common migration challenges you are about to face. 

4. They De-Risk Compliance and Security

Most internal teams overlook shared responsibility models, IAM misconfigurations, data residency laws, and cloud-native logging. AWS Partners help you meet security and compliance expectations from day one, not after something breaks.

 

5. They Offer Post-Migration Support and Modernization Guidance

After the migration, most teams wonder: Now what? A good AWS Partner won’t just leave you hanging in the cloud. They help you modernize apps, implement DevOps, monitor costs, and train your team for long-term success.

Final Thoughts: The Cost of Waiting

Every day you delay migrating your VMware workloads to AWS, you risk higher operational costs and miss out on agility, resilience, and innovation. Broadcom’s changes have clarified that the old VMware model is not built to fit where your business needs to go.

Let’s Move Forward—Together

At Ibexlabs, we’ve helped fast-moving startups and global enterprises safely migrate, optimize, and modernize their workloads on AWS. As an AWS Advanced Tier Partner with deep expertise in VMware-to-AWS migrations, we’ll guide you from discovery to successful migration. Let’s build a roadmap tailored to your business, pace, and goals. Talk to an AWS Migration Expert at Ibexlabs.