VMware to Hyper-V Multi-Site Infrastructure Transition
Phased migration across three distribution sites completed within six weeks, covering 58 virtual machines without produc…
VMware to Hyper-V Multi-Site Infrastructure Transition
Retail and Distribution · North America
At a glance
Executive Summary
Project Details
Industry
Retail and Distribution
Region
North America
Services Provided
- Multi-Site Assessment
- Phased VM Migration
- Hyper-V Cluster Deployment
- Disaster Recovery Configuration
- Staff Enablement
Key Takeaways
- Hyper-V Replica replaced VMware Site Recovery Manager between the primary and secondary sites at zero additional licensing cost.
- Elimination of Broadcom VCF subscription costs delivered an estimated $180,000 in annualised savings.
Overview
A retail and distribution company operating three warehouse sites had standardised on VMware vSphere across all locations. Following the Broadcom acquisition and licensing restructure, the organisation was presented with a mandatory VCF subscription bundle that was financially unsustainable at their scale. Blue Orca Solutions was engaged to migrate all three sites to Hyper-V under a single coordinated programme, maintaining full business continuity at each location throughout the transition.
Key outcomes
$180,000
Annualised infrastructure savings of approximately versus the Broadco…
$180,000
Elimination of Broadcom VCF subscription costs delivered an estimated…
48 hours
. A retail and distribution company operating three warehouse sites h…
Deep dive
Case Narrative
Challenges
- Migration required coordination across three geographically separate sites, each running active production workloads tied to distribution operations.
- VMware Site Recovery Manager was in active use for DR between sites—requiring a validated replacement before any decommission activity could proceed.
- 58 VMs across all sites included a mix of Windows and Linux workloads, with several legacy application servers requiring special conversion handling.
- The client operated a lean IT team with no internal virtualisation specialists, making external ownership of delivery critical.
Our Approach
- Multi-Site Discovery and Risk RegisterBlue Orca conducted remote and onsite assessments at all three locations, capturing VM inventories, resource utilisation baselines, and network configurations. A migration risk register was produced and prioritisation agreed with the client’s operations lead before any work began.
- Hyper-V Cluster Deployment and DR Replication SetupA two-node Hyper-V failover cluster was deployed at the primary distribution site with shared storage provisioned using Windows Storage Spaces Direct. Hyper-V Replica was configured between primary and secondary sites to replace VMware SRM disaster recovery capability—validated before any production VMs were migrated.
- Phased Migration Across Three SitesVMs were migrated in three phases aligned to site priority. Each site migration followed a consistent pattern: convert, validate in parallel for 48 hours, execute cutover, decommission. Linux workloads were converted using disk2vhd with Generation 2 VM configuration to ensure driver compatibility post-migration.
- DR Validation and Structured HandoverHyper-V Replica was tested with a planned failover prior to programme close. Full DR runbooks were documented for each site pair. Client IT staff received structured walkthroughs covering Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager, and replica health monitoring procedures.
Results
- All 58 virtual machines migrated across three sites without production incidents or unplanned application downtime.
- Hyper-V Replica replaced VMware SRM disaster recovery capability at zero additional licensing cost.
- Annualised infrastructure savings of approximately $180,000 versus the Broadcom VCF subscription quote.
- Client IT team operational on Hyper-V with documented runbooks, DR procedures, and escalation paths established across all sites.
Why Blue Orca Solutions?
Blue Orca delivered a complex multi-site migration programme with the coordination discipline of a large integrator and the responsiveness of a dedicated partner—ensuring each site transitioned cleanly without disruption to distribution operations.
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