Inventory workloads and dependencies
List virtual machines, operating systems, CPU and memory needs, storage, networks and dependent services. Check older hardware, drivers, commercial applications and backup products separately. A VM booting successfully is not proof that every feature or vendor support arrangement is compatible.
- Which services must start in a particular order?
- What downtime, data loss and recovery objectives are acceptable?
- Are application licences tied to the platform or hardware?
Prove recovery before migration
Keep backups independent of the migration operation and test restoration in an isolated environment. A snapshot should not be the only backup. Check application consistency, permissions and retention, then validate business workflows rather than simply checking that the guest starts.
Pilot the network and storage design
Use a suitable pilot workload to test disks, drivers, performance, VLANs, firewalls and dependencies. Ceph and high availability need assessment against hardware, network capacity and failure scenarios. A cluster is not a promise of zero downtime.
Compare annual costs and support scope
Separate subscriptions, vendor support, backups, hardware and local managed services, with migration as a one-off item. Support hours, response arrangements and scope can differ. Ask for a current GBP quote for your UK environment; the Hong Kong case is not a UK price estimate.
Read the Hong Kong saving with its conditions
Our Hong Kong deployment compares annual costs with a saving of HK$134,461: a public list price comparison dated 07/10/2026, using six CPUs, VMware minimum core licensing and Proxmox Standard. It is not a customer invoice or an all-inclusive maintenance quote. Tax, migration, hardware and local services are excluded. Sources and calculations are on the case page; no GBP conversion is inferred.
Agree acceptance and rollback
Record owners, the maintenance window, checks, rollback triggers and communications. Confirm backup jobs, monitoring, permissions and support handover before retiring the previous platform. This checklist is preparation guidance, not a completed compatibility assessment or a delivery guarantee.
Next steps
Assess options against your organisation’s actual workflows. Important decisions remain subject to staff review.
Request a migration checklist and assessmentOur team follows up by email; this does not start a file download.