A manufacturer facing a VMware licensing renewal it didn’t want to sign needed a migration path that wouldn’t disrupt production — with maintenance windows measured in hours, a recovery site that already left the plant-floor integration layer uncovered, and migration and DR modernization competing for the same capital budget. The decision was to use the recovery estate as the migration path itself: replicate into UPC DRaaS on KVM, prove recovery there, then use the same replicated environment as the staged migration target — with the original estate retained as rollback until each cutover held. One program, one budget, two outcomes: a controlled exit from VMware and a stronger recovery position covering production planning, MES integration, and quality systems, funded once.
