Disaster Recovery Journal Fall 2025

VMware vSphere represents the hypervisor that organizations most often use to host their many if not all their VMs. While this still holds true, recent surveys suggest that up to 70% of organiza tions may soon change hypervisors. To switch, they need some method to move existing VMs from vSphere to another hypervisor. Backing up existing VMs and restoring them on another hypervisor often represents the sim plest way to move them. While this sounds simple in theory, reality paints a differ ent picture. Broadcom’s decision to change VMware’s software licensing terms has created a ripple effect. If organizations move to another hypervisor, what will stop their new hypervisor provider from introducing similar draconian software licensing changes? Organizations must also consider the possibility their new hypervisor provider gets acquired, as

Data mobility functionality is a core feature Driven by increased demands for data availability, orga nizations already view and treat data protection as a core IT process. To respond to failures, outages, or ransomware attacks, many organizations need immediate access to their backup software. Most robust backup software permits them to recover a VM with few simple commands or clicks, some times in minutes. Delivering data mobility across multiple platforms requires this same type of common, centralized access that facilitates rapid recovery. In recovering VMs, organizations cannot always predict to which platform they will recover a VM. They may recover a VM to the same hypervisor, to a different hypervisor, or to a cloud platform. This necessity to rapidly recover a VM to any platform requires

backup software to offer data mobility function ality. Deploying data mobility as a separate, standalone solution only slows recovery and introduces unneeded complexity in recovery operations. By includ ing data mobility func tionality in backup software, organizations know where to turn and how to use it. Supports primary cloud and hypervisor platforms As organizations seek out data mobility functionality in backup

already occurred in July 2025. If an acquisition occurs, how will that impact them? They cannot evalu ate backup software’s data mobility capabili ties on moving VMs from vSphere to only one other hypervisor. Many do not want to once again get locked into the new hypervisor they just chose. They want backup software to give them the flex ibility to move VMs between multiple dif ferent hypervisors. As they consider

that possibility, why stop at just moving VMs between different hypervisors? Many organizations already have hybrid cloud envi ronments and may host VMs with different cloud providers. Why not select backup software that gives them the freedom to restore their VMs to any hypervisor or cloud platform? Backup Software + Data Mobility: What It Looks Like The flexibility to back up and restore VMs across any hyper visor or cloud platform requires backup software offers data mobility functionality. However, to deliver on data mobility’s promises, backup software must possess certain attributes. Here are six features organizations should look for in backup software that offers data mobility functionality.

software, they should set realistic expectations about its current capabilities. Only about half of current backup software products support backing up and recovering VMs across multiple hypervi sors and cloud platforms. The number of hypervisors and cloud platforms each one supports can vary significantly. Organizations can now realistically expect to find one or more solutions that offer the following capabilities. On the cloud side, organizations should expect a solution to support Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Microsoft Azure. On the hypervisor side, organizations should similarly expect support for Azure Stack, Microsoft Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV, and VMware vSphere. Support means the backup software can back up VMs on any platforms and then restore VMs to any of them.

40 DISASTER RECOVERY JOURNAL | FALL 2025