Route Selection | From VMware to ZStack Cloud

In 2024, following Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, the company is transitioning fully to a subscription model. VMware is restructuring its product lines into four foundational subscription packages: VVEP, VVS, VVF, and VCF, supplemented by add-on components. This marks a shift from perpetual licenses to 1/3/5-year subscriptions, with adjustments to sales rules under this new model.

For users, VMware's complete shift to subscriptions raises complex questions about cost calculation and return on investment. What does this subscription model truly mean for users? ZStack Technology is here to help users navigate these changes. Click on the following video to access a 45-minute analysis by a ZStack product technology expert, covering user cost comparisons post-VMware subscription, alternative solutions, path evaluations, and replacement case studies.

Private Cloud Upgrade and Virtualization Replacement Scenarios

There are various replacement paths for different VMware product combinations, including virtualization alternatives, hyper-converged replacements, and private cloud upgrade alternatives. The ZStack product matrix can comprehensively replace VMware's core data center product lines, with product combinations comparable to VMware's four subscription packages.

For some users, VMware's shift to subscriptions presents an opportune moment to upgrade virtualization with private cloud solutions. But what scenarios are better suited for private cloud to replace and upgrade virtualization?

Medium to large enterprises or organizations: These typically have extensive IT infrastructure and complex business needs, requiring more flexible and scalable resource management and service delivery models. Private clouds offer advanced management and control features to better meet the needs of large enterprises.

Multi-tenant environments: If an enterprise needs to support multiple departments or business units sharing the same IT infrastructure, with isolation and management for different tenants, private cloud's multi-tenant support and resource isolation features may be more suitable.

Highly customized needs: Some enterprises may require customized resource management and configuration based on their business needs and specific application scenarios. Private clouds provide more flexible resource management and configuration capabilities to support such customization needs.

High security and compliance requirements: Institutions like finance and healthcare often have stringent data security and compliance requirements, needing strict data control and regulation. Private clouds offer superior data isolation and security controls to meet these demands.

Complex application scenarios: Complex applications may require various resources and services to interact and collaborate, needing more control and customization. Private clouds offer richer services and features to better support these complex scenarios.

From VMware to ZStack Cloud

When users utilize VMware components like vSphere, vSAN, networking, operations, and containers, they can adopt the ZStack Cloud replacement path. Some heavy VMware users, mainly in medium to large data centers, use a relatively full-stack product. For such customers, VMware's subscription combinations primarily include the VVF and VCF packages. As shown, ZStack Cloud can also replace VMware's overall solutions. It offers the following key features:

ZStack Cloud provides organizational structure management, ticket management, independent area management, separation of duties, and project-based resource access control. It manages different roles' operational permissions within an organization through a multi-level organizational structure, allowing for decentralization and domain separation while enabling customizable approval processes and project-specific billing, making organizational management flexible and user-friendly, reducing management costs. In terms of high security and availability, ZStack Cloud integrates north-south and east-west firewall functions to achieve virtual machine isolation and protection for customers. It supports agentless CDP capabilities for virtual machines, ensuring high availability for business operations.

Additionally, ZStack Cloud offers multiple value-added modules that users can choose from to expand functionality as needed. It supports integration with distributed storage and PaaS-level container services, as well as CMP multi-cloud management functions, and supports hybrid cloud management, enabling unified management of Alibaba public cloud and VMware virtualization.

Notably, ZStack Cloud features four distinctive capabilities:

1. Multi-architecture cloud: First to receive "multi-architecture cloud" advanced certification from Trusted Cloud, compatible with four architectures and eight platforms.

2. Compliance with cryptographic evaluation: Based on hardware cryptographic machines certified by the National Cryptography Administration, providing unified certificate login and data protection functions with cryptographic machine resource pooling. After cloud integration, platform cryptographic evaluation compliance can be activated with one click.

3. Elastic bare metal: Delivers physical servers in the cloud at a minute-level, combining the characteristics and extreme performance of physical machines with the elasticity and security advantages of the cloud.

4. Heterogeneous management: Supports unified management of chip clusters with different architectures.

ZStack ranks in the top 5 of IDC's cloud system software market report, as the leading independent cloud vendor. Headquartered in Shanghai, it serves 34 provinces and cities across China, assisting over 3,600 enterprise users and partnering with more than 300 active channels and 200 ecosystem partners, providing attentive and high-quality services.