Renew, upgrade or change
Understand the technical and operational consequences before committing budget or programme capacity.
VMware Modernisation Assessment
Decide what should happen to your VMware estate
Before committing to a renewal, upgrade or migration, establish what exists, what is at risk, what each realistic option means and what an executable route forward looks like.
Focused assessments from £4,950 plus VAT.
A decision before a programme
Make the next decision with a clear view of the estate
Know what is really there
Reconcile the estate, lifecycle position, workload ownership and material dependencies behind the decision.
A route that can be executed
Set out the recommended direction, the decisions still required and a prioritised roadmap for delivery.
What Cygnus assesses
The platform, the workloads and the operating consequences
Estate & lifecycle
vCenters, hosts, clusters, versions, hardware supportability and lifecycle constraints.
Architecture & health
Availability, storage, networking, configuration, operational health and technical debt.
Capacity & consolidation
Resource use, growth, failure-domain needs and opportunities that warrant measured validation.
Applications & dependencies
Workload groups, ownership, criticality, service dependencies and outage constraints.
Licensing & cost inputs
Customer-provided quotations, entitlements and commercial scenarios considered alongside deployed technical quantities.
Migration & operations
Compatibility, target readiness, skills, security, backup, disaster recovery and operational handover.
Questions answered
Enough clarity to choose the next commitment
What needs attention now? Material lifecycle, supportability, health and dependency issues are separated from lower-priority improvement.
Which workloads belong together? Infrastructure components are related to applications and services rather than treated as isolated VMs.
Which options are credible? Requirements, constraints and current estate information are used to compare retain, improve, move and mixed routes.
What would execution involve? Prerequisites, decisions, pilots, migration readiness and delivery sequencing are made visible.
The deliverable
A clear recommendation with enough detail to act
The report gives senior stakeholders the recommended direction, trade-offs, material risks and roadmap, while retaining the technical context infrastructure and application teams need to act.
- Executive platform direction and decision context
- Estate baseline and lifecycle findings
- Technical-risk and constraint findings
- Workload disposition and target options
- Migration-readiness findings and prioritised roadmap
Download a worked example showing the recommended direction, workload options and delivery roadmap.
Modernisation options
Remain, improve, move or combine
Retain VMware
Keep a suitable platform in service with its lifecycle, operating model and commercial implications understood.
Upgrade or consolidate
Address lifecycle and architecture needs while reducing unnecessary fragmentation where it is useful.
Hosted VMware or VCF
Consider a hosted operating model where compatibility, service terms and recovery needs make it credible.
Azure or Azure Local
Assess target readiness, landing requirements and workload suitability without assuming lower cost or simpler operation.
Another platform
Compare alternative virtualisation options only where Cygnus or an identified specialist can support a dependable assessment.
Change the workload
Replatform, replace or retire applications where retaining their present form is not the best long-term decision.
Related services
Connect the platform decision to recovery and Azure visibility
What should we do?
Decide what should happen to the VMware estate and what executing that decision would involve.
Can it recover?
Review how critical services would recover after a platform change, including their dependencies, procedures and previous test results.
Explore DR AssuranceWhat is present in Azure?
Collect a dependable Azure inventory and machine-readable data, with optional prioritised insights and advisory support.
Explore CloudStateCurrent lifecycle context
Check support and compatibility against the estate you actually run
Broadcom states that general support for vSphere 7 ended on 2 October 2025. Product packaging, lifecycle and hardware compatibility continue to change, so the assessment checks current authoritative sources at the time of the engagement rather than relying on static assumptions.
Broadcom vSphere 7 support guidanceIndicative fees
A clear starting point, scoped to estate complexity
Focused assessment
£4,950
One site or vCenter with conventional architecture, a clear decision to make and timely access to the required information.
Broader assessment
£8,950–£11,500
Several clusters or workload groups, greater application depth, more than one site or a broader set of target options.
Complex assessment
From £14,950
Specialist components, several sites or vCenters, critical dependencies, incomplete records or several credible target platforms.
Complexity indicators
Hosts, clusters, vCenters, sites, workload population, NSX, vSAN, VCF, Horizon, application criticality, target breadth and documentation quality all influence the work.
Fees exclude VAT. Travel, on-site or out-of-hours work, specialist input and material scope changes are quoted separately. After an initial discussion, you receive a confirmed scope and fee.
Discuss the scope and feeEngagement process
From estate review to an executable roadmap
- 1
Initial scope
Agree the decision, estate boundaries, stakeholders, target options and information required.
- 2
Build the estate view
Collect approved exports, documents and customer records, then resolve important information gaps.
- 3
Compare the options
Bring platform, lifecycle, workload, dependency, commercial and operational factors into one reasoned view.
- 4
Review the findings
Check important facts, constraints and decision points with the relevant technical and service owners.
- 5
Report and roadmap
Present the recommended direction, trade-offs, decisions and prioritised route forward.
After the assessment
Turn the decision into delivery
The assessment can stand alone, or Cygnus can help prepare and deliver the chosen route.
Migration readiness
Close important information, compatibility, landing-zone and operating-model gaps.
Wave planning
Group applications with dependencies, prerequisites, outage and validation needs in view.
Pilot or proof of concept
Test the assumptions that could reverse a target decision before programme commitment.
Migration engineering
Plan and execute authorised change with cutover, rollback, validation and handover controls.
VMware engineering
Upgrade, consolidate or remediate the retained platform through an agreed delivery plan.
Post-migration validation
Confirm technical health, service acceptance, monitoring, backup and operational ownership.
Free working resource
Start with the VMware Modernisation Readiness Checklist
Use the seven-part self-assessment to clarify the decision, identify important information gaps and see where deeper discovery is needed.
Use the checklist
Frequently asked
Practical questions about the assessment
Is this a VMware exit assessment?
No. The assessment can recommend retaining, upgrading or consolidating VMware where that is the most credible route. It can also recommend migration, replatforming, replacement, retirement or a mixed target state when the estate and requirements support it.
What determines the scope?
Scope reflects hosts, clusters, vCenters, sites, workload population, application dependencies, business criticality, target destinations, documentation quality and specialist components such as NSX, vSAN, VCF or Horizon. Pricing is driven by estate complexity rather than organisation size.
Does Cygnus provide a software licence audit?
Cygnus can compare deployed technical quantities with customer-provided quotations and entitlement records, then explain the technical implications of each scenario. Legal and contractual interpretation remains with your licensing adviser.
Which target options can be considered?
Options can include remaining on VMware, upgrade or consolidation, hosted VMware or VCF, Microsoft Azure, Azure Local, another virtualisation platform, application replatforming, replacement, retirement or a combination. Only credible options for the agreed estate are assessed.
Does the assessment include migration?
The assessment defines readiness, prerequisites, likely waves, constraints and the route to validation. Detailed discovery, pilots, migration engineering, cutover and post-migration checks can follow under a separate delivery plan and fee.
How is disaster recovery considered?
The assessment considers the backup and disaster-recovery implications of each platform option. A separate DR Assurance Review can examine service-level recovery in more depth where required.
How much does the assessment cost?
A focused VMware Modernisation Assessment starts from £4,950 plus VAT. After an initial discussion about the estate and decision, you receive a confirmed scope and fee. Engineering, active testing and production change are quoted separately.
Start a conversation
Need a clear VMware direction?
Tell us what is driving the decision, the broad estate shape and any important deadline. We will outline the assessment needed to answer it.