Seamless Migration to Public VCF

In a time of major shifts for VMware customers following Broadcom’s acquisition, OVHcloud has led a remarkable technical transition: the automated migration of thousands of VMware workloads to its next-generation multi-tenant platform—Public VCF as-a-Service. 

In our latest Tech Talk, OVHcloud product leaders Francois Loiseau (R&D VMware Ecosystem Lead) and Yann Meguira (Product Unit Lead) joined Laurent Blin (Product Marketing Manager) to go behind the scenes of this massive migration effort. Together, they shared how OVHcloud protected customers from disruptive licensing changes—while rebuilding its VMware stack from the ground up. 

Why a New VMware Offering Was Needed 

For over 15 years, OVHcloud has offered managed VMware solutions on dedicated infrastructure. But in 2023, Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware introduced a major pricing shift—from a flexible memory-based licensing model to a fixed-core pricing model with a minimum of 16 cores per processor. 

This change impacted many customers, especially those with smaller workloads running on small hosts. 

“It wasn’t just about pricing,” explained Yann. “It was about protecting our customers and maintaining the flexibility, security, and value they expect from OVHcloud.” 

Public VCF as-a-Service emerged as the answer—a fully managed, multi-tenant VMware Cloud Foundation platform offering enterprise-grade performance at a far more accessible price point. 

What Makes Public VCF as-a-Service Different? 

While traditional VMware cloud hosting often relies on single-tenant infrastructure, Public VCF uses VMware Cloud Director to create secure, isolated environments on shared bare metal servers. Customers benefit from: 

• Cost efficiency through shared infrastructure 
• Logical isolation for secure, tenant-specific environments 
• Flexible resource allocation and advanced networking 
• Full VMware compatibility and SLA-backed performance 

“We retain strong isolation between tenants while maximizing efficiency,” said Francois. “This is a huge leap forward in how we scale VMware services.” 

How OVHcloud Engineered a Zero-Downtime Migration

Migrating thousands of production virtual machines across global data centers is no small feat—especially when the target platform is brand new. OVHcloud is committed to a seamless, automated migration process with zero downtime for customers.

Here’s how they did it: 

1. Comprehensive Infrastructure Scan 

A deep scan of each customer’s existing VMware environment ensured complete visibility into workloads, dependencies, and configurations. 

2. Context Mapping to New Environment 

Each workload was mapped to the new Public VCF environment, with network, compute, and storage requirements translated to the new multi-tenant architecture. 

3. Automated Hot Migration 

Using live migration techniques, workloads were transferred from the legacy infrastructure to the new platform without service interruption. 

“Hot and fully automated migration was a core requirement,” said Francois. “We had petabytes of data and tens of thousands of VMs to move across multiple countries.” 

4. Validation & Post-Migration Testing 

After migration, OVHcloud ran comprehensive tests to ensure applications and services remained fully operational. 

What Powers This Migration Behind the Scenes? 

The migration wasn’t just about moving workloads—it was also about building a new VMware stack, new infrastructure, and a new information system (IS) behind it. 

“We didn’t just launch a product—we rebuilt our entire VMware ecosystem,” said Yann. 

Key highlights: 

• New IaaS layer to support multi-tenant management 
• Integration with VMware Cloud Director, SDDC Manager, and Cloud Builder 
• Full support for VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) with a focus on scalability 
• Localized infrastructure in Europe and North America for data sovereignty 

Around 70 engineers worked on this transformation for over a year, designing both the technical stack and the tooling to manage it at scale. 

What’s Next for OVHcloud’s VMware Portfolio? 

The launch of Public VCF as-a-Service is just the beginning. OVHcloud’s roadmap includes: 

🔹 General Availability of Public VCF as-a-Service (Coming soon) 

All new workloads can be deployed on Public VCF as-a-Service (coming soon).

🔹 Redesigned Hosted Private Cloud 

A new version of the managed private cloud will support VCF 9 and advanced features like 3-Availability Zone deployments, enabling stretched clusters and enhanced business continuity. 

🔹 Unmanaged VMware Solution 

For expert teams, OVHcloud will offer unmanaged VMware cloud hosting, giving customers full administrative control over infrastructure while leveraging OVHcloud’s hardware. 

A Milestone in Managed Cloud Transformation 

This migration marks a turning point—not just for OVHcloud, but for any organization looking for a modern, cost-efficient VMware cloud solution with enterprise-grade performance and automation. 

Whether you're planning your next VMware deployment or reassessing your cloud strategy post-Broadcom, OVHcloud’s VMware Public VCF as-a-Service offers a flexible, future-ready path forward. 

• VMware Cloud Foundation Hosting 
• Zero-Downtime Migration to Multi-Tenant VCF 
• Secure Global Infrastructure  
• Fully Managed & Unmanaged VMware Options 
• Built for Scale: 100,000+ Cores Managed 

Ready to modernize your VMware workloads? 

Get in touch to learn how OVHcloud’s Public VCF as-a-Service can help future-proof your infrastructure.