**Detailed up front analysis & options_**

Valuecom presents Azure Local in a strategic assessment of alternatives to current VMware environment.

With the rising cost of VMware licensing continuing to disrupt IT budgets, organisations are increasingly evaluating alternatives. Valuecom, recently supported one such enterprise in assessing their options and the organisation ultimately selecting Azure Local as a strategic alternative, delivering an estimated $2 million in cost savings over a five-year refresh cycle against the current install base and environments assessed.

Faced with a significant uplift in VMware environment costs, Valuecom led a comprehensive review of alternatives. This involved analysing.

Infrastructure
Workloads and Locations
Application stack compatibility
Migration Risks
Platform interoperability
Future Mode Of Operations
Licence models
Costs/Benefits & Risk Of Change

Working closely with the customer, Valuecom developed a detailed business case, supported by a financial model and a heat map of new platform options against an agreed criteria.

For this customer, continuing with VMware environments from a price point simply wasn’t sustainable, they needed a solution that aligned technically, operationally and financially with their future mode of operation.

Why Azure Local_

Azure Local emerged as the clear winner given the use case due to its hybrid cloud capabilities, licence mobility, and alignment with the customer’s existing Microsoft investments. By reusing already-paid Windows licences the organisation will gain access to evergreen licensing, supported directly by Microsoft.

Further benefits included:

Cloud Services On-Premise with data sovereignty preserved.
A single pane of glass for monitoring and management via Azure Portal.
Subscription-based pricing that simplified bid support.
Alignment with a global operating model.
Asset inventory in one place.
Future-proofing via Azure Arc CIS Datacentre SKU and SCCVM, enabling central management of a mix of additional hypervisors for operating model consistency.

From Strategy to Evidence_

Not content with just theory, Valuecom supported the customer through a hands-on Proof of Concept (POC), in partnership with an OEM vendor and a Service Integrator. The POC validated:

Portal usability and user access
Patching and Microsoft Defender deployment
Active Directory configuration
Disaster recovery testing
Azure Local Gateway and HTTPS connectivity
ITSM integration
Azure Migrate - migrating virtual machines to Azure Local VMs
Arc Resource Bridge to alternative hypervisors

The success of the POC gave stakeholders confidence to proceed, enabling Valuecom to further support the development of best practice Standard Operating Procedures. These documents were tailored to the organisation’s internal policies and standards, smoothing the path for early adopter site rollouts.

Conclusion_

In a market where IT cost efficiency and strategic alignment are paramount, this case demonstrates how an alternative to VMware environments can be not only viable—but transformational. With Azure Local, the customer will benefit from modern hybrid cloud capabilities on-premise, clear governance, and centralised visibility, all while reducing cost and complexity for this use case.

Valuecom’s structured, evidence-led approach highlights its commitment to helping customers make informed, confident technology decisions delivering both business and technical outcomes.

The environment assessment has helped the enterprise identify $2 Million in cost saving and optimisations through licencing, infrastructure and cloud strategy improvements across a 5-yr renew cycle.

**ISO 9001/2015 and 27001/2022 Certified_**

Valuecom unlocks $2 Million in future savings for a Global Enterprise advising a move to Azure Local in a strategic assessment of alternatives to VMware.

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Valuecom: The right team and strategy to deliver success

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Valuecom proposes $2 Million in savings