As VMware exit plans accelerate, more enterprises are moving beyond pilot projects and into large-scale production migration. For organizations with hundreds or thousands of VMs, the challenge is not simply moving workloads from one virtualization platform to another. Migration needs to be repeatable and manageable across different workload criticalities, downtime windows, hardware environments, and infrastructure transformation scenarios.
SmartX has supported more than 80 enterprises with VMware migration projects exceeding 100 VMs, while leading enterprises have migrated tens of thousands. Across these projects, SMTX Migration Tool has been used for large-scale batch migration, mission-critical workloads, server reuse, vSAN replacement, ITAI transformation, and other scenarios. The following 12 customer stories show how enterprises across finance, manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, and technology are carrying out VMware migration at scale.
Batch Migration with SMTX Migration Tool
For large-scale VMware migration, enterprises need more than a tool for moving individual VMs. SMTX Migration Tool supports VMware VM migration to SmartX ECP and has been applied across a wide range of enterprise production environments. In large-scale projects, its value is reflected in several areas:
- Simple operation and efficient batch configurations: Supports single and batch migration tasks, helping teams reduce repetitive configuration work and improve migration efficiency when handling hundreds or thousands of VMs.
- Multiple strategies to reduce downtime: Keeps VMs online during most of the migration process and supports incremental data synchronization before cutover, helping shorten the final downtime window. Migration can also be organized in phases or rolling batches based on business requirements.
- Support for mission-critical VMs across industries: Proven in production environments spanning finance, healthcare, manufacturing, logistics, and other industries, including core systems, databases, and other mission-critical workloads.
- Reuse of multi-vendor servers to cut software and hardware costs: Supports VMware replacement while retaining existing servers where appropriate, including heterogeneous hardware from different server and CPU vendors, reducing additional hardware procurement.
- Vendor-backed support with rapid issue resolution: SmartX engineers can assist with migration planning, validation, troubleshooting, and cutover, helping teams address workload- and environment-specific issues during large-scale migration.
Customer Success Stories
A Leading Securities Firm: 10,000+ VMs Migrated for Core Systems
A leading securities firm independently migrated more than 10,000 VMware VMs using SMTX Migration Tool. The migration spans trading and non-trading production systems, Dev/Test, and DR environments, with the new infrastructure hosting core systems and databases.
The firm reused all existing servers to reduce hardware costs. It also independently deployed the new clusters, improving its control over infrastructure deployment and subsequent operations.
A Leading Regional Bank: 10,000+ VMs Migrated with 600+ vSAN Servers Reused
A leading regional bank independently migrated more than 10,000 VMware VMs using SMTX Migration Tool. The environment hosts all production systems, including core teller and online banking, as well as Dev/Test, DR, and more than 200 MySQL databases.
The bank reused more than 600 vSAN servers, with some clusters using heterogeneous configurations across multiple server vendors, CPU vendors, and CPU generations. It also validated Oracle ADG standby on SmartX ECP, achieving superior performance and stability over vSAN clusters.
A Fintech Company: 2,000+ VMs Migrated for ITAI Transformation
A fintech company independently migrated more than 2,000 VMware VMs using SMTX Migration Tool. Efficient batch migration reduced repetitive manual tasks such as VM IP and DNS configuration, helping the team manage the migration at scale.
At the same time, the company replaced VMware while advancing ITAI transformation. Independent deployment, operations, and migration give the company end-to-end control over its infrastructure.
A Leading Insurance Group: 1,000+ VMs Migrated with VMware and Nutanix Replacement
A leading insurance group migrated more than 1,000 production and Dev/Test VMs, covering key Life and P&C insurance workloads. The project replaced both Nutanix and VMware while moving critical business workloads to the new environment.
The customer also reused its existing Nutanix servers to reduce additional hardware investment. With support from SmartX engineers, the migration was completed before the planned downtime window ended.
An Innovative Technology Investment Company: Nearly 1,000 VMs Migrated Across Data Centers
An innovative technology investment company migrated nearly 1,000 VMware VMs in batches, covering OA, SCCM, campus management, and other systems. The project replaced VMware virtualization + vSAN clusters while reusing existing servers to reduce hardware spending. SmartX also delivered a customized migration tool to meet the customer’s OS hardening requirements.
The company further used SMTX Backup & Disaster Recovery to replace VMware vReplication. This supported large-scale cross-city data center relocation while reducing migration complexity and downtime. >>Learn more about Nutanix-exit solutions
A Semiconductor Assembly and Test Solutions Provider: 400+ VMs Migrated for Core Systems
After running SmartX ECP for nearly one year, a semiconductor assembly and test solutions provider migrated 400+ VMware VMs, including numerous Windows Server workloads. The new environment spans office, production, and DMZ scenarios and hosts core systems such as MES, SAP, EAP, and YMS, as well as internal systems including BI, monitoring, and DHCP.
The company also reused nine existing servers during the infrastructure transformation. This avoided the purchase of more than 100 additional memory modules and reduced the hardware cost of the VMware replacement project.
A Leading Logistics Company: 300+ VMs Migrated for Core Systems
A leading logistics company independently deployed multiple SMTX Migration Tool instances and migrated more than 300 VMware VMs over 10GbE LACP networks. The migrated workloads include the company’s core order system as well as Kafka, Redis, RabbitMQ, and other key service components.
As part of the infrastructure upgrade, the company also built an early high-performance HCI cluster using NVMe all-flash storage and RDMA networking, providing a new infrastructure foundation for its critical business systems.
A Leading Auto Components Manufacturer: Nearly 300 VMs and 200+ TB Migrated
A leading auto components manufacturer migrated nearly 300 VMs and more than 200 TB of data, covering all production systems, including its in-house MES, big data platform, SAP, WMS, and SCADA. The company replaced vSAN while reusing all hardware from more than 10 existing servers.
To control migration risk, the manufacturer first validated high-risk workloads, then tiered VMs and migrated them within specific windows, with rehearsals performed before cutover. All workloads, including critical production systems, were successfully cut over within the planned downtime windows without data loss.
A Life Insurance Company: 200+ VMs Migrated with 97% Lower Hardware Costs
A life insurance company migrated more than 200 VMware VMs and replaced vSAN. By reusing several VxRail servers and purchasing only additional SSDs, the company reduced hardware procurement costs by 97%.
The company adopted rolling migration to replace the HCI software on existing servers. This allowed the infrastructure replacement and VM migration to proceed while maintaining business continuity.
A Provincial Grade-3A Hospital: 200+ VMs Migrated to Hygon-Based SmartX ECP
A provincial Grade-3A hospital migrated more than 200 VMware VMs to SmartX ECP built on Hygon-based servers, advancing VMware exit and ITAI transformation at the same time. The platform hosts key systems including HIS middleware, outpatient queue management, and privacy computing.
The hospital adopted a phased transition strategy, beginning with an edge-workload pilot before expanding migration to large-scale critical workloads. This provided a controlled path for moving key business systems to domestic IT infrastructure. >>Learn more about VMware replacement in hospitals
A Top Grade-3A Hospital: 100+ VMs Migrated with 60% Hardware Reuse
A top Grade-3A hospital migrated more than 100 VMware VMs supporting HIS, inpatient, pharmacy, and other core systems. By reusing multiple vSAN servers, the hospital achieved 60% hardware reuse while improving performance by 40%, helping reduce costs and improve infrastructure efficiency.
Before large-scale migration, the hospital validated the migration of 2 TB of VM data within 15 minutes and established a strategy based on VM tiering, risk isolation, and phased replacement. It subsequently migrated more than 40 vSAN database VMs within two weeks. SMTX Migration Tool passed validation on the first attempt, providing practical experience for subsequent migration waves.
Multiple Branches of a Large Bank: 150+ VMs Migrated for ITAI Transformation
Multiple branches of a large bank independently migrated a total of more than 150 business VMs using SMTX Migration Tool. The new environment was built on Hygon-based servers, allowing the branches to advance VMware replacement and ITAI transformation together.
Across the head office and more than 30 branches, the bank has deployed over 1,500 SmartX ECP nodes. All of these deployments use SmartX’s native hypervisor, ELF, providing a consistent virtualization platform across locations.
Conclusion
Large-scale VMware migration requires enterprises to move large numbers of VMs efficiently while minimizing downtime, protecting critical workloads, and controlling migration costs.
With proven migration experience across 80+ enterprises, SMTX Migration Tool helps organizations simplify batch migration, reduce business disruption, reuse existing infrastructure, and migrate VMware workloads at scale with greater efficiency and control.
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