Rethink Your VMware Strategy as vSphere 7 Support Ends

As of October 2025, VMware vSphere 7 has officially reached end of general support. While it may look like just another version sunset on the surface, it represents something more important: a moment to rethink your VMware strategy.

If your team is already planning patch schedules, hardware quotes and licensing renewals, now is the time to ask a more strategic question: Is continuing with more of the same the best use of your resources?

With changes in licensing, aging infrastructure and increasing operational complexity, continuing down the traditional path often requires major investments — both financial and human. But that’s not the only option. This is your chance to shift toward a more agile and future-ready approach.

Why sticking with the status quo costs more than it seems

IT teams managing vSphere 7 face a convergence of challenges:

• Aging infrastructure: Many vSphere 7 environments run on hardware that’s approaching end of life and prompting costly refresh decisions.
• Licensing changes: With VMware’s shift to subscription-based licensing, teams must adjust budgeting, planning and procurement strategies.
• Operational lift: Transitioning to vSphere 8 often requires new hardware, license reconciliation and partial retraining of teams.

For many IT teams, this combination creates more work with less long-term payoff. Instead of investing in another upgrade cycle, you can rethink your environment, reduce technical debt and shift from capital expense to a more predictable, operational model.

Meet Amazon Elastic VMware Service

For organizations ready to move beyond costly refresh cycles but still want to preserve their VMware investments, Amazon Elastic VMware Service (EVS) offers a viable alternative that avoids disruption while opening the door to modernization. This next-generation VMware service is not the same as VMware Cloud on AWS — it gives you full-stack control by deploying dedicated hosts directly into your AWS account and VPC.

With EVS, you gain flexibility without sacrificing familiarity:

• Lift and move: Migrate workloads without refactoring or rewriting applications.
• Same tools, new agility: Continue managing workloads with the vSphere, vSAN and NSX interfaces your team already knows.
• Opex model: Avoid large capital investments and align infrastructure costs with AWS’s flexible pricing.
• Modernization-ready: Once your workloads run in AWS, you’re adjacent to a wide range of cloud-native services and ready to modernize at your pace.

Rackspace helps you take full advantage of EVS

Migrating to a new environment — especially one that blends legacy VMware and modern cloud — is a complex decision. That’s where Rackspace comes in.

As both an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner and an experienced VMware solutions provider, we are uniquely positioned to guide you through this transition. We understand both sides of the equation — your VMware environment and your AWS opportunity — and we help bridge the gap.

Here’s what that looks like in practice:

• Migration funding support: Rackspace helps qualified customers access AWS migration funding programs that can significantly offset upfront costs.
• Technical guidance and execution: From planning to execution, our experts handle workload assessments, network design, licensing optimization and performance tuning.
• Security and compliance alignment: We help you maintain compliance, protect workloads and align to regulatory frameworks as you transition environments.
• Ongoing optimization: Once workloads are migrated, we stay engaged. Our teams help you fine-tune performance, control costs and plan for modernization on your timeline.

This isn’t a lift-and-leave exercise. It’s a long-term partnership to help you move with clarity and confidence.

Let’s move forward together

If your team is focused on patching legacy systems, navigating license changes or preparing another major hardware rollout, now is the moment to explore a more agile and sustainable path forward. Amazon EVS offers the flexibility and control your team needs, with the cloud benefits your business expects.

We’ve helped thousands of organizations navigate change with clarity, speed and long-term value. Let’s explore how we can help you move forward with confidence.
 

Let’s start the conversation.