It was just over twenty years ago that enterprises talked about server sprawl and the sustainability of maintaining so many hardware servers on prem. That conversation was initiated by the dawn of virtualization thanks to innovative vendors like VMware whose ESX infrastructure began transforming the datacenter landscape. Suddenly, organizations could consolidate workloads, which significantly reduced the need to purchase and maintain endless racks of hardware. Suddenly, a new standard was born.
Virtualization: Streamlined, But Still Complex
While the days of racks filled with metal boxes are largely behind us, virtual machines still rely on a complex ecosystem of underlying hardware, software, and systems that require perpetual licensing. From hypervisors and storage systems to network configurations and management tools, each component plays its own key role in keeping your applications and processes running, so that your business can operate and thrive.
While the initial investment can be substantial, it is only the beginning as ongoing costs continue throughout the system’s lifecycle. All that “stuff” needs to be supported, maintained and upgraded after every lifecycle. This is why we calculate the Total Cost of Ownership to reveal the complete financial impact of virtualization beyond upfront expenses. Without accounting for long-term investments in infrastructure, operations, and personnel, organizations cannot accurately assess a solution’s true value.
Factoring TCO is Highly Complicated
As organizations embrace hybrid architectures, arriving at the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your IT infrastructure investments is no longer just about accounting for hardware investments, support contracts, and upgrade cycles. Today’s hybrid environments introduce a host of new variables that make TCO a murky process.
- Scalability Costs: Successful and competitive businesses want to grow, which means your IT infrastructure must scale with it. Whether expanding cloud capacity or upgrading on-prem resources, scalability comes with a price tag that must be accounted for.
- Technical Debt: Every organization is guilty of quick fixes, legacy code, and rushed development decisions at some point. Eventually, those shortcomings accumulate into technical debt that can slow innovation and inflate future upgrade expenses.
- Resource Utilization Imbalances: Hybrid environments often suffer from overutilized on-prem assets. Underutilization means your investments aren’t being optimized. This is typical with cloud environments where underutilization can result in surprise bills that wreak havoc on budgets.
- Tool Sprawl: Managing a hybrid estate often leads to the adoption of multiple tools for monitoring, security, and orchestration which can result in overlapping functionality, duplicate licensing, and increased training and support costs.
There are also hidden costs you must consider. A big one is business downtime. When your business critical applications are down, you lose business. Don’t take shortcuts on resiliency.
The Challenge of Sustainability
While you may not have witnessed the dawn of server virtualization, you were most likely present during the COVID years. If so, you remember the sudden disruption in supply chains. The fragility of supply chains is important to keep in mind when aiming to extend the life of existing infrastructure because the longer you rely on aging infrastructure, the more dependent you become on the availability of compatible hardware. Sustainability in IT isn’t just about financial viability. It’s also about resilience and availability. Sustainability can also be threatened when the financial equation changes due to mergers or acquisitions, as demonstrated by Broadcom’s recent acquisition of VMware.
Containers Mean Lower TCO
Even more compelling, containers typically run on open-source platforms such as Kubernetes, eliminating hefty licensing fees associated with proprietary solutions. The lightweight approach of containers uses far less memory and storage, which means you can run more workloads on fewer servers. That translates to lower costs on many fronts including power, cooling and space. Kubernetes also natively automates tasks such as scaling, load balancing and failover, minimizing the need for manual intervention and operational overhead. As application demand grows, Kubernetes automatically deploys additional containers as needed, ensuring seamless scaling without a spike in labor costs.
Containers also pair naturally with OPEX-friendly, consumption-based cloud models where you pay only for the resources you use, and scaling capacity up or down is simple and fast. By migrating away from costly virtualization licenses and legacy technical debt, organizations can redirect resources toward innovation and accelerate product releases.
Container Considerations
If the concept of containers is new to your organization, there are some things you need to consider before transitioning.
- Your organization may have a skills gap, so factor in retraining costs or bringing new talent to lead the team.
- While cloud hosting offers flexibility, extracting and analyzing cloud-hosted data can incur unexpected fees. Be sure to factor in data egress costs when planning workload analytics.
- You may want to refactor your workloads by separating them into microservices to take advantage of containers.
- Containers may eliminate licensing costs, but they don’t eliminate the need for robust cybersecurity. Container environments require dedicated security strategies, including image scanning, runtime protection, and access controls.
- Successful adoption depends on support from across the organization, so communicate the benefits clearly.
Make Keyva Part of the Equation
Transitioning from a virtualized environment to a container platform is not a mere lift-and-shift. It is a paradigm shift, from how you monitor systems and patch applications, to how you develop, deploy, and manage workloads. Operational workflows, troubleshooting, and even the skills required for day-to-day tasks are fundamentally different. It isn’t a migration; it is a platform modernization effort.
At Keyva, we’ve guided organizations through this shift for years. We help you identify the best workloads to containerize, select the optimal platforms, and ensure your transition delivers long-term value. Our hands-on approach includes training your team to maximize efficiency, control costs, and budget with confidence for your new environment. Let Keyva be your partner for a smooth, successful container transformation.
 | Anuj Tuli, Chief Technology Officer Anuj specializes in developing and delivering vendor-agnostic solutions that avoid the “rip-and-replace” of existing IT investments. He has worked on Cloud Automation, DevOps, Cloud Readiness Assessments, and Migration projects for healthcare, banking, ISP, telecommunications, government and other sectors. He leads the development and management of Cloud Automation IP (intellectual property) and related professional services. During his career, he held multiple roles in the Cloud and Automation, and DevOps domains. With certifications in AWS, VMware, HPE, BMC and ITIL, Anuj offers a hands-on perspective on these technologies. Like what you read? Follow Anuj on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anujtuli/ |