Insights
Beyond migration: How CIOs can turn VMware change into a catalyst for cloud modernisation
- Date 07 Nov 2025
- Filed under Insights
A new chapter for cloud-ready CIOs
Across Australia and New Zealand, CIOs are facing a pivotal moment. VMware licensing changes, mounting data centre costs, and the push to modernise legacy infrastructure are forcing technology leaders to rethink their cloud strategies.
If migration is part of your play, the question you should be asking right now is “how can this move make us better?”
NRI’s approach, developed in partnership with AWS, transforms your migration from a reactive move into a proactive strategy for business resilience and innovation. As was explored in our ‘CIO Checklist for future-ready cloud transformation‘ we recommend a structured six-stage framework to help you plan your move with purpose – because it’s not just about cost savings. It’s about future enablement.
Step 1: Visibility before velocity
Every successful migration starts with visibility. Before moving a single workload, it’s critical to understand the full VMware environment — workloads, dependencies, licences, and business impacts.
Through NRI’s AWS Migration Assessment, CIOs gain a complete view of their infrastructure and readiness. This enables data-driven decisions about what to migrate, when to modernise, and how to realise value faster.
The goal: plan with precision, not pressure.
Step 2: Lift, learn, and lead
Traditional “lift-and-shift” methods rarely deliver modernisation. NRI advocates for a “lift, learn, and lead” approach — one that blends advisory, engineering, and FinOps expertise to achieve sustainable results.
Each phase of migration becomes an opportunity to improve — whether through automation, right-sizing workloads, or building resilience with AWS Well-Architected design principles.
Step 3: Designing for cloud-native success
Once visibility and planning are in place, the next step is to architect for the future. That means designing environments that are automated, secure, and scalable by default.
Using AWS Landing Zones, CI/CD pipelines, and modern architectures like containers and serverless, NRI helps organisations move beyond rehosting — building foundations that accelerate innovation, not just migration.
Step 4: Move with confidence, measure with clarity
Migration isn’t a single event — it’s a learning cycle. By executing in structured waves and validating performance, cost, and compliance at each stage, CIOs can reduce risk while maximising impact.
With AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) and Migration Hub, NRI streamlines this process — ensuring that every move is measurable, efficient, and aligned to business goals.
Step 5: Operate lean, evolve continuously
Once workloads are live on AWS, success depends on how you manage and evolve them. Through NRI’s Managed Cloud Services, organisations embed FinOps practices to optimise usage, performance, and cost — creating a sustainable model for continuous improvement.
It’s not just about running in the cloud; it’s about running smarter.
Step 6: Modernise and innovate
The migration may be complete, but the transformation is only beginning.
NRI helps clients unlock the full potential of their AWS foundation — from AI and analytics to serverless innovation. By aligning people, process, and technology, CIOs can move faster, adapt easier, and deliver measurable business value.
The takeaway: Migration is the beginning, not the end
The shift away from VMware isn’t just a challenge — it’s an opportunity. CIOs who treat migration as the first step in a broader modernisation journey will emerge stronger, more agile, and better prepared for what’s next. With AWS’s modernisation frameworks and NRI’s proven expertise across assessment, migration, and managed services, organisations can turn disruption into digital momentum — and build a cloud that grows with them.
