VMware Migration Assessment vs. Stage-0 (2025)

Introduction

Organizations considering a VMware migration are often advised to start with a “migration assessment.”

But what exactly does that mean, and how does a Stage-0 readiness baseline fit in? This brief explains the difference between a full VMware migration assessment and a Stage-0 baseline, why both matter, and how they work together in practice.

What a VMware Migration Assessment Is

A VMware migration assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of your current vSphere environment designed to reduce risk, plan the sequence of moves, and estimate the cost of migration. These assessments are usually performed by vendors or partners and include multiple data sources, subject matter expertise, and stakeholder workshops.

Typical components of a VMware migration assessment include:

  • Infrastructure inventory: Cataloging all ESXi hosts, clusters, VMs, and features in use (vMotion, HA, DRS, SRM, etc.).

  • Operational review: Understanding current backup, DR, change management, and automation practices.

  • Dependency mapping: Using flow tools or logs to identify application and service interconnections across VMs.

  • Performance and capacity modeling: Profiling workloads to size them correctly on the target platform.

  • Cost and TCO modeling: Translating inventory and performance data into pricing scenarios on cloud or alternative hypervisors.

  • Risk analysis: Identifying business-critical systems, compliance-sensitive workloads, and change-averse servers.

  • Roadmap and sequencing: Producing a phased migration plan with wave groups, timelines, and pilot candidates.

These assessments are deep and detailed. They provide the confidence required for multi-million-dollar platform decisions. However, they require significant effort, vendor participation, and data collection across multiple systems.

What a Stage-0 Baseline Is

By contrast, a Stage-0 VMware Migration Assessment is a fast, agentless baseline that runs entirely in your own environment. It uses only two inputs:

  1. vCenter inventory export: typically via RVTools or direct CSV export.

  2. Backup inventory export: from platforms such as Veeam, Rubrik, or Commvault.

With just these two data sets, a Stage-0 baseline can produce:

  • Per-VM readiness bands (Red/Yellow/Green)

  • Reasons for risk flags (e.g., missing backup, stale backup, uptime >180 days, production/compliance tags)

  • Rollups by cluster, OS family, backup posture, and uptime class

Stage-0 is not meant to replace a full vendor assessment. Instead, it acts as the first-hour, internal view that organizations can generate before involving partners. The process is transparent, editable (e.g., in Google Sheets or Excel), and vendor-neutral.

How Stage-0 and Full Assessments Fit Together

The two approaches are complementary, not competitive:

Stage Scope Who Runs It Key Outputs
Stage-0 Baseline vCenter + backup exports only Internal IT (no agents) R/Y/G readiness bands, reasons, basic rollups
Stage-1 Assessment Adds dependencies, performance, DR posture Vendor/partner Detailed migration plan, validated risks
Stage-2 Analysis Adds pricing, TCO, wave design, SOW Vendor + procurement Costed scenarios, contracts, execution roadmap

While organizations can certainly dive straight into vendor-led assessments, doing a Stage-0 baseline first saves time and effort. With a quick, self-run snapshot in hand:

  • You enter vendor conversations with a clear starting point on backup posture, uptime, and critical VM categories.

  • Discovery and scoping can move faster, since the obvious questions are already answered.

  • Internal teams feel more confident, which helps accelerate progress toward a Stage-1 engagement.

Stage-0 doesn’t replace Stage-1. It simply provides an efficient launchpad, making the vendor phase smoother and more productive.

Why Stage-0 Matters in 2025

  • Two factors make Stage-0 especially relevant today:

    1. Licensing and pricing changes: Broadcom’s updated VMware subscription models, core minimums, and bundle rules mean that understanding which VMs are risky or non-compliant is more urgent than ever. A Stage-0 baseline highlights the “move-sooner” systems before a detailed cost analysis.

    2. Time-to-signal: Many organizations don’t have weeks to wait before seeing their first readiness insights. Stage-0 delivers directional answers in under an hour, without agents or uploads.

    In other words, Stage-0 is the fastest path to a conversation about renew vs. migrate.

Neutral Takeaways

A full VMware migration assessment is essential for accurate planning, cost modeling, and execution.

  • A Stage-0 baseline is a practical first step that saves time, reduces effort, and builds confidence before vendor-led work begins.

  • Running Stage-0 first allows organizations to move through vendor conversations and into deeper assessments more quickly and effectively.

Sources

Legal note

All product names are trademarks of their respective owners. This page describes how a Stage-0 baseline complements a class of tools; it is not an evaluation of any specific vendor.