# Transition from VMware

If you’re considering transitioning from VMware to an alternative virtualization stack, the <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> is an excellent choice. Platform9's <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> offers features similar to those you’ve relied on in VMware for years.

To help you get started, here’s a simple glossary mapping familiar VMware features to their counterparts in the <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> environment.

| **Your favorite VMware feature**                          | **Equivalent in PCD**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| --------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| VMware vSphere Clusters                                   | In <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code>, [Virtualized Clusters](/private-cloud-director/2025.10/virtualized-clusters/virtualized-cluster-blueprint.md) and host aggregates serve a similar purpose to vSphere clusters.                                                                                                                |
| VMware vCenter Server                                     | The <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> management plane manages infrastructure resources, similar to how vCenter orchestrates VMware environments.                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| VMware ESXi Host                                          | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> uses KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) as the underlying hypervisor.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS)               | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> Dynamic Resource Rebalancing (DRR) manages the distribution of workloads & resource consumption across hosts.                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| VMware CPU and Memory over-commitment ratios              | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> supports over-commitment ratio specification for CPU and Memory at a host or a host aggregate level.                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| VMware High Availability (HA)                             | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> VM HA (2/4 nodes cluster) feature supports continuous availability of services.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
| VMware vMotion                                            | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> supports Live Migration to move instances across hosts without downtime.                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| VMware Storage vMotion                                    | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_name</code> [Storage Live Migration / Volume Retyping](/private-cloud-director/2025.10/storage/volume.md#storage-live-migration--volume-retyping)                                                                                                                                                                |
| VMware Virtual or Distributed Switch (vSwitch / DVSwitch) | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> uses Open vSwitch to provide Distributed Virtual Switch equivalent capabilities.                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| VMware Template                                           | In <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code>, templates are referred to as [Images](/private-cloud-director/2025.10/images-and-image-library/image-library---images.md), which are used to create new virtual machines.                                                                                                                     |
| VMware Snapshot                                           | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> support VM Snapshots for capturing the current state of a VM.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| VMware NSX (Networking and Security)                      | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> [Networking Service](/private-cloud-director/2025.10/virtualized-networking/networking-overview.md) offers full Software Defined Networking capabilities, including managing physical or virtual networks, routers, IP management, micro-segmentation, security policies, LBaaS, DNSaaS and more. |
| VMware Datacenter                                         | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> Regions, Domains, Tenants, and much more                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
| VMware VMFS Datastore                                     | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> direct mount storage w/ storage LUNs (no shared file system) or with NFS backend                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| VMware vVol                                               | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> Volumes, Volume Types, Volume Snapshots                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
| VMDK (Virtual Machine Disk) Format                        | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> uses the QCOW2 file format for virtual machine disk images.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| vCenter Storage Policies                                  | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> Storage Types and Storage Groups                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
| vApps and vRealize Orchestrator (vRO)                     | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> utilizes Heat orchestration templates & Terraform to automate composite cloud application deployment.                                                                                                                                                                                             |
| VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM)                        | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> supports disaster recovery through integration with most popular third-party backup and disaster recovery solutions.                                                                                                                                                                              |
| VMware Resource Allocation (CPU/Memory)                   | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> uses flavors to define VM configuration, including CPU and memory allocations.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    |
| VMware Content Library                                    | <code class="expression">space.vars.product\_acronym</code> uses Image Library Service for VM templates and snapshots.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |


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