VMware Migration

You're losing vCloud Director.
Your operating model doesn't have to go with it.


For service providers mid-migration who need to replace the commercial layer, not just the infrastructure.

vCloud Director wasn't just a tool.
It was your operating model.

The infrastructure underneath was vSphere. vCD was the layer above it — the part your business actually ran on.

🏢

Multi-tenant orgs

Customers lived in isolated virtual datacentres. Hard walls between them.

🖥️

Self-service portal

Customers provisioned VMs and vApps themselves. No ticket needed.

📦

Service catalog

vApp templates and VM configurations published as sellable items.

📊

Metering & chargeback

Usage tracked per org. Feeding billing and showback reports.

🏷️

Your brand

White-label portal. Your customers saw your cloud, not VMware's.

Moving to OpenShift replaces vSphere. It doesn't replace any of this.

Most migration plans solve
the wrong problem.

Every workload migration focus is on the infrastructure. The operating model gets treated as someone else's problem.

✓ Getting solved

Infrastructure

✓ VMs migrated to OpenShift Virtualization

✓ Storage moved to OpenShift Data Foundation

✓ Networking re-platformed

✓ Workloads running on new cluster

✗ Being ignored

Operating model

✗ Who manages tenant isolation?

✗ How do customers self-provision?

✗ Where does metering come from?

✗ What replaces the white-label portal?

You land on OpenShift. Your tenants still call you to provision VMs.

Everything vCD gave you.
Rebuilt for the cloud-native era.

Cloud Orchestrator is the direct replacement for the operating model layer — not the infrastructure.

vCloud Director

Cloud Orchestrator

Organization VDCs — isolated virtual datacentres per customer

Tenant workspaces via KCP — isolated control planes per customer

Provider & tenant portals — separate views per role

White-label self-service portal — branded per service provider

vApp templates & VM catalog — publishable service items

Service catalog — CRD-backed, publish new offerings same day

Resource pools & quotas — per-org limits

Policy-driven quotas — enforced by architecture, not config

Chargeback & showback — usage reporting per org

FinOps metering engine — real-time cost per tenant, per service

Not a replacement.
An upgrade.

Cloud Orchestrator isn't trying to recreate vCD. It's what vCD would have been if it were built today.

Cloud-native

Kubernetes-native architecture. No legacy Windows dependency. Runs on any OpenShift cluster.

API-first

Every operation is an API call. Automate anything — onboarding, provisioning, billing — without portal clicks.

Sovereign-ready

Runs air-gapped. On-prem, private datacentre, or hybrid. Data never leaves your jurisdiction.

Extensible catalog

Add new services — databases, backups, Kubernetes clusters — the same day you decide to sell them. No integration project per offering.

Your migration path
doesn't have to stop at infrastructure.

Cloud Orchestrator layers on top of your existing OpenShift migration — no separate programme required.

1

Continue your OpenShift migration

Workloads, storage, networking. The infrastructure migration runs as planned — Cloud Orchestrator doesn't change it.

2

Deploy Cloud Orchestrator on top

Runs on your OpenShift cluster. Adds the commercial layer — tenancy, metering, portal, catalog — without touching the workload migration.

3

Recreate your tenant structure

Map your existing vCD organisations to Cloud Orchestrator tenant workspaces. Policies, quotas, and access controls carry over.

4

Publish your service catalog

Recreate your vApp templates as catalog items. Add new services — Kubernetes clusters, DBaaS — that weren't possible before.

5

Cut over your customers

Your customers log into your new branded portal. Same self-service experience — on modern infrastructure, with a modern operating model.

This isn't a roadmap.
It's in production.

Stakater Cloud is the reference implementation. We run this operating model ourselves — every day.

Multi-tenant, self-service, white-label

Every vCD capability we've described runs in production on our own cloud — not a demo environment.

Running since October 2024

Stakater Cloud launched on this model. Paying customers from day one. Production workloads running today.

Red Hat Certified Multi-Tenant Operator

Our operator is on the Red Hat Marketplace. The tenancy model is certified, supported, and production-ready.

Stakater

Red Hat Premier Partner since 2018

✓ Red Hat Certified Multi-Tenant Operator

✓ Master Services Agreement — Sweden

✓ Reloader — 24B+ downloads, 9.9k GitHub stars

✓ Global team across 8 countries

Your operating model
survives the migration.


OpenShift replaces vSphere. Cloud Orchestrator replaces vCloud Director.
The complete stack — ready to go.



stakater.com