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Exit VMware without buying new risk, new debt, and new lock-in
The renewal shock wasn't your choice — what you migrate to is. enclaive turns a forced migration into a modernization: a landing zone that is secure by default and runs on any platform you choose.
WORKS WITH SUSE RANCHER, RED HAT OPENSHIFT, MANAGED KUBERNETES AND SOVEREIGN EU CLOUDS. NO CHANGE TO APPLICATIONS AND TOOLING.
Most VMware exits are run against a renewal date. Under that pressure, migration programs tend to buy three new problems while solving one old one.
New security debt
A Kubernetes platform stood up in a hurry ships with more privileged access paths than the estate it replaces: cluster admins, cloud admins, provider support. Security gets scheduled “for phase two” — and phase two competes with the next deadline.
The modernization tax
Every workload that can't move keeps VMware alive. Regulated and sensitive systems get blocked or sent for redesign, the dual-run period stretches, and you pay for two platforms while your savings case erodes.
Lock-in, relocated
Binding the new platform to a single cloud's KMS and managed services recreates the leverage problem you're leaving — this time around the services and infrastructure, including encryption control. Renegotiation power depends on being able to leave.
This applies whether your estate is heavily regulated or only partly sensitive: a retailer's customer database or a logistics firm's pricing engine hits the same walls as a bank's core system.
A landing zone where security is the default, not the phase two
enclaive puts a confidential-by-default baseline into the migration itself. Workloads land encrypted in use, access is bound to verified workload identity instead of humans and long-lived secrets, and the evidence your auditors need is produced by how the platform runs.
Pods run encapsulated as confidential VMs. Cluster admins, cloud admins and provider support lose readable access to workload data — a posture most virtualization estates never had.
Customer data, financial systems and other blocked workloads migrate alongside everything else, because encrypted-in-use processing and customer-held keys answer the objections that block them. No fragmented estate, no stranded VMware island.
Bring and hold your own keys in a virtual HSM instead of a single cloud's KMS. The same baseline deploys to Rancher, OpenShift, managed Kubernetes, sovereign EU clouds or your own hardware — exit readiness is built in.
Attestation status, key custody and access control come with audit artifacts attached. The first migrated workload arrives with its compliance evidence, not with a promise to document it later.
Assess and baseline
Map the estate, flag regulated and sensitive workloads, and stand up the confidential-by-default landing zone on your target platform.
First production workload
Migrate one meaningful workload end to end — running, attested, with policy and audit evidence. This is the definition of done that de-risks everything after it.
Migration factory
Repeat the proven pattern in waves. Blueprints and policy templates keep every cluster on the same baseline, so wave ten is as clean as wave one.
VMware retired
The economics your CFO signed up for
The exit mandate came from a licensing bill. The migration approach decides whether the savings survive contact with reality — or get eaten by the transition itself.
A shorter dual-run period. The largest hidden cost of any exit is paying for two platforms at once. When regulated and sensitive workloads migrate in the main waves instead of stalling, the overlap shrinks.
No security surcharge on the new platform. Security built into the landing zone replaces the stack of point tools, compensating controls and audit effort that a bare Kubernetes build needs afterwards.
Spend that stays negotiable. Distribution-agnostic, cloud-agnostic and customer-held keys mean every provider on your new platform — including us — prices knowing you can leave.
Layers onto your target platform, replaces none of it
enclaive is not another Kubernetes distribution or another cloud to evaluate. It's the security and sovereignty baseline that travels with your workloads, whichever exit route you pick — and it fits the tooling you already run.
Support for your preferred Linux and Kubernetes distributions, including SUSE Rancher, Red Hat OpenShift and managed Kubernetes on AWS, Azure and Google Cloud
Sovereign EU clouds, including IONOS and STACKIT, and your own on-prem hardware
Existing HSM estates and secrets managers coexist — a gradual migration path, no rip-and-replace
Terraform, Ansible and CI/CD pipelines keep working; provisioning is API-driven
Deployment into your own cloud accounts, inheriting your IAM, logging and budget controls
The program metrics this approach is designed to move — the same ones your board will ask about at every gate review.
Time to first production workload on the new platform
Length and cost of the dual-run period
Privileged access paths, before and after
Share of regulated workloads migrated rather than stranded
Time to produce a complete audit evidence pack
Exit readiness: what it costs to leave any provider, including us
SUSE Rancher Prime and enclaive's Virtual HSM
Discover how Red Hat and enclaive enable zero-trust, sovereign Kubernetes with Confidential Computing and externalized key management.
The exit lands here — the same estate, on a baseline that travels between providers.
VMs move across without rewrites, and arrive sealed rather than like-for-like.
Containerized workloads land on confidential Kubernetes on standard distributions.
One console across the clouds the migration spreads you over.
Keys stay yours before, during and after — which is what keeps the next exit cheap.
What migration teams ask
How long does a VMware exit like this take?
It depends on estate size and how much runway your renewal date leaves, so we won't quote a number a sales page can't know. What we can say: the plan works backwards from your date, the first production workload lands early as the proving milestone, and the lift-and-shift path exists so no workload waits on a refactor. Bring your date and estate size and we'll give you a real sequence in the first call.
What does it cost compared to renewing?
The comparison has three parts: the renewal quote you already have, the target platform's run cost, and the transition cost in between. enclaive's effect is on the second and third — a shorter dual-run, no post-hoc security stack, and pricing that stays negotiable because leaving remains cheap. We'll build the three-part comparison for your estate in the first call, against your actual Broadcom renewal numbers.
We have a hard renewal date. How does that change the plan?
It sets the sequencing. We work backwards from the date: landing zone and first production workload early, so the pattern is proven while there's still slack, then waves sized to the remaining runway. Because workloads can lift and shift into confidential VMs unchanged, the clock never forces an unsafe refactor.
Does this replace Rancher, OpenShift or our managed Kubernetes plan?
No. Those remain your platform choice — enclaive is not another VMware alternative to evaluate. It adds the confidential runtime, workload identity, key custody and evidence layer on top: the parts none of those platforms provide on their own.
Our apps aren't containerized. Do we have to refactor before we can move?
No. Workloads can lift into confidential VMs unchanged and containerize later, on their own schedule. The security baseline is the same either way.
We're considering a sovereign EU cloud. Does that change anything?
The same baseline deploys to IONOS, STACKIT and other EU providers, and because you hold the keys, moving between a hyperscaler and a sovereign cloud later doesn't mean rebuilding your security model.
Isn't this just adding another vendor to escape one vendor?
On the surface, the plain answer is yes: you remove one vendor and introduce a new technology. On the other hand, you gain platform flexibility — and, probably more important, you raise security to a new level within the boundaries of your existing operational model. And because the baseline is distribution-agnostic and cloud-agnostic, with your keys in your custody, the cost of leaving us stays low by design.
Bring the renewal quote_
We'll put the exit scope, the security upgrade and the number next to it — and you decide with all three visible.
