How much time will the switch take – on top of day-to-day business?
Your team is already stretched, and the migration would come on top.
Hypervisor migration for the mid-market
The path to Proxmox – planned and in stages instead of one big leap.
Many IT teams in the mid-market are currently reviewing alternatives to their existing virtualisation platform. We show how a move to Proxmox works in practice – with predictable costs and based on our project experience.
Book an initial consultation
20 minutes · 5 questions · direct feedback
The starting point
Sound familiar? Before every big step comes an even bigger question mark.
What happens to production workloads during the migration?
Operations have to keep running – there’s no pausing them.
Will everything afterward be at least as stable as before?
A step back in stability or performance would be hard to justify.
What does the migration cost – and what are the ongoing costs afterward?
Both are hard to estimate up front.
Does the infrastructure need to be renewed or expanded beforehand?
New hardware or added capacity would significantly change the numbers.
Can the existing backup solution and storage concept keep being used?
Both are proven and should ideally stay as they are.
Fair questions – and exactly the right order: get clarity first, then migrate.
Your options
Two paths – and what sets them apart in practice
Stay on a licence-based model
Commercial platforms like Nutanix or Hyper‑V come with ongoing licence costs per host or core. In our projects, the migration effort has turned out to be similar in scale to switching to open source – except the ongoing costs and contractual lock-in remain. Comparing the actual terms is worthwhile either way.
Switch to open source: Proxmox with Ceph storage
Proxmox VE is licensed under the GNU AGPL v3 and can be used with no licence costs; an optional subscription is available for the enterprise repository and support. In our experience, it’s the most obvious alternative if you’re coming from a VMware, Citrix or Hyper‑V environment: in our migration projects, ongoing costs afterward were significantly lower than the previous environment’s – how big the difference is depends on your terms and the size of your environment.
- Import wizard for VMware ESXi VMs
- Live migration without downtime
- HA clusters with no single point of failure
- Integrated backup & restore
- Ceph storage directly on the cluster nodes
- Open source code, support via subscription
There are other paths too – hyperscalers, Kubernetes with KubeVirt or OpenShift Virtualization. Each option has its place; which target architecture fits your environment depends on your requirements. We’ll work that out together: vendor-neutral and open-ended.
The process
How your migration can play out – host by host, in plannable stages
In-place migration example: in this scenario, the switch happens on your existing hardware – no additional servers are required. Whether that also applies to your environment is something we’ll clarify beforehand.
What Proxmox VE brings
- No licence costs – used under the GNU AGPL v3
- Open standards instead of vendor lock-in
- Runs on standard x86 hardware, vendor-independent
- Full feature set at every subscription level
- KVM hypervisor on a Linux base, fully open source
- Server, storage and network in a single interface
The numbers
What does your virtualisation cost today – and what would be possible with Proxmox?
In a worked example with 3 hosts and 96 cores, running costs after switching are around €13,000 lower per year, with break-even reached after about 9 months. What would the numbers look like for your environment?
Free – after providing your name, company and emailAdjust the settings for your environment – the example follows your input. The default is a typical mid-market case: 3 hosts, 96 licensed cores.
Your licensing today
Licensing today annual licence costs · 96 licensed cores
€15,360 / year
Proxmox after the migration ongoing licence and support costs
€2,220 / year
One-time investment in the migration
approx. €10,000
Alternatively as a leasing rate 60-month term, net plus VAT
approx. €205 / month
Potential difference running costs in this example ≈ factor 7 lower
€13,140 / year
Return on Investment
after about 9 months
Non-binding example calculation, not a quoted price. Assumptions: 32 cores per host; figures based on experience from our projects (vSphere Enterprise Plus ≈ €160/core/year, cloud licence/VCF ≈ €350/core/year); Proxmox subscription ≈ €740/host/year; migration effort depends on hosts and VMs. Your actual prices may differ – only your provider’s actual terms are decisive. A reliable calculation follows in the project-definition workshop.
Try it before you decide: Proxmox VE is open source. You can test it alongside your existing environment on a single host – with no licence costs and no obligation.
The right time
When’s the best time to act? NOW.
You typically still have support – and that’s exactly your advantage: you can look at a migration calmly, plan it at your own pace and prepare without time pressure, instead of having to react under pressure later.
„Measure seven times, migrate once – not the other way round."
Book an initial consultation
20 minutes · no obligation
About us
Welcome to Contensi
We see ourselves as an enabler: we guide mid-sized companies on the way to their own data centre and toward open source – technically grounded and without vendor lock-in.
Behind it stands a team of IT specialists and IT architects that forms a shared professional thread across all relevant topics: data centre, security, cloud, DevSecOps and, more recently, artificial intelligence too.
Before we talk technology, we clarify your framework conditions: how many hosts, which workloads, which backup strategy, what timeframe. That builds a picture of whether and how a switch pays off for you.
- Vendor-neutral – we recommend what fits you
- Traceable calculations instead of blanket promises
- Migration in stages, pausable at any time
2017founded – technology from large data centres, at home in the mid-market
100 %vendor-neutral – we recommend what fits
24×7operations and support around the clock, on request
Our service portfolio
From advisory to operations – all from one partner
Advisory
Vendor-neutral and open-ended – we assess what’s worthwhile.
Design
Target architecture including backup and storage concept.
Integration
Integrating new hardware and software into your existing landscape.
Migration
Planned, tested and done in stages rather than one big leap.
Support
Around the clock on request, including weekends.
Operations handover
Selective support or fully as a managed service.
Our approach to technology
Strong partners, open standards
We work with leading technology partners to deliver secure and reliable solutions.
The next step
20 minutes well spent.
The initial consultation
20 minutes, 5 questions about your environment – and you get direct feedback on whether and how switching is worthwhile for you.
Book an initial consultation No obligation, via video callDemo or walkthrough
45 minutes – see Proxmox live: interface, migration and backup using a concrete example.
We’ll agree on a time during the initial consultation.The target-architecture workshop
If it’s worthwhile: usually half a day, online in the interest of efficiency. We work out the target architecture for your environment – including a concrete recommendation, vendor-neutral. You’ll then receive a quote and a follow-up appointment.
Already know what you need? We usually reply within one business day.References
Companies that trust Contensi
Trust built on results – from the cloud to the data centre.
- Deutsche Börse AG
- Deutsche Bahn AG
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Behörde Niedersachsen
- Bausparkasse Schwäbisch Hall
- Bundesdruckerei
- Auswärtiges Amt
- A.T.U.
- Schöck Bauteile AG
- MBN GmbH
- Adapt Elektro Technik GmbH
- Raiffeisen Westfalen Mitte eG
- Wischemann Kunststoff GmbH
- Max Kroker Bauunternehmung GmbH & Co. KG
- LACTOLAND Trockenmilchwerk GmbH
- Your company