Checklist

VMware migration readiness checklist

34 checks across eight areas. Work through them before you commit to a target platform or a migration date.

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01Inventory and dependencies

  • Export a full inventory: VMs, hosts, clusters, datastores, networks and templates
  • Record each VM’s OS, vCPU, memory, disks, firmware (BIOS or UEFI) and hardware version
  • Map application dependencies and the traffic between VMs
  • Flag VMs that use VMware-specific features: vGPU, RDMs, Fault Tolerance, vSAN policies, NSX
  • Note VMs with snapshots, encrypted disks or independent disks

02Licensing and contracts

  • Current VMware licence and support end dates
  • Renewal quote under the subscription model, for comparison
  • Third-party software licensed per host, socket or VM that may be affected
  • Migration budget and decision deadline agreed

03Target platform

  • Capacity requirements: CPU, memory, storage capacity and performance, with growth
  • High availability and maintenance requirements
  • Storage design chosen: Ceph, ZFS or external SAN/NAS
  • Container plans for the next two to three years (Proxmox VE or OpenShift Virtualization)
  • Team skills reviewed and a training plan in place

04Networking

  • VLANs, port groups and distributed switch settings documented
  • IP addressing, firewall rules and load balancers captured
  • Replacement planned for any NSX features in use, such as micro-segmentation

05Backup, DR and ransomware protection

  • Backup software supports the target platform
  • Immutable, air-gapped backup copy designed
  • Restores tested on the target platform before migration
  • DR runbooks updated, with RPO and RTO confirmed

06Security and compliance

  • Hardening baseline defined for hosts and the management plane
  • Role-based access and MFA for administrators
  • Audit logs forwarded to your SIEM
  • Compliance evidence your auditors will ask for identified

07Migration plan

  • Pilot workloads chosen
  • Waves grouped by dependency and business owner
  • Maintenance windows agreed with application owners
  • Rollback plan written for every wave
  • Validation tests defined for each application

08After go-live

  • Monitoring and alerting in place on the new platform
  • Runbooks handed over and knowledge transfer completed
  • Go-live support and contacts agreed
  • VMware hosts and licences decommissioned on schedule