Lufthansa removed VMware software due to its high cost and switched to open source programs

On January 13, 2025, it became known that the largest aviation concern Europe Lufthansa , along with its cloud provider Anexia, had abandoned use software VMware in favor of virtualizations a hypervisor-based open source platform. KVM

According to The Register, the reason for the transition was a fivefold increase in the cost of VMware licenses after the acquisition of the company by the technology giant Broadcom. Anexia CEO Alexander Windbichler noted that the new conditions were unacceptable, as they assumed an advance payment for the year ahead on a two-year contract instead of monthly payments.

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Фото: Freepik

During the migration, 12,000 virtual machines were successfully transferred to the new platform. The process was completed by May 2024 without changing the physical infrastructure of the company, which places equipment in more than 100 data centers around the world.

The transition was made possible thanks to Anexia's own subsidiary Netcup, which already had experience with KVM. In addition, the company used storage systems NetApp VMware independently of the virtual infrastructure, which greatly simplified the migration process.

To ensure a smooth transition, Anexia developers have created a special tool that allows customers to transfer virtual machines to the new format with the click of a button in their personal account. The migration was carried out through the Anexia Engine abstraction layer, thanks to which users never directly interacted with the VMware interface.

According to a September 2024 study by cloud company Civo, about half of VMware customers plan to opt out of using this software due to rising prices and the rejection of "eternal" licenses. Among the large companies that have already abandoned VMware services are the American insurance company Geico, the Australian fintech company Computershare and the agricultural machinery manufacturer John Deere.^[1]

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