Revirtualisation vs. devirtualisation: What’s really driving cloud strategy in 2025?
Helen, CEO of Shaping Cloud, cuts through the noise about cloud and talks about the things that matter
Helen Gerling is one of the UK’s leading cloud computing and digital transformation specialists. Her style is refreshing: cutting through the noise and complexity to bring clarity and understanding. For Helen, it’s all about helping organisations make the most out of cloud where it matters: business value, operational agility, and creating a truly enabling environment to power performance, innovation and improvement.
In this Clarity on Cloud series, she’ll be diving into various facets of the cloud debate and coming up with expert insights and clear takeaways for Infrastructure and Operations Leaders (I&O). If it’s a high-quality lowdown you’re after, read on!
Revirtualisation vs. devirtualisation: What’s really driving cloud strategy in 2025?
As IT leaders grapple with increasing licensing costs, regulatory changes, and business transformation pressures, a new conversation is emerging around revirtualisation vs. devirtualisation. With Broadcom’s recent changes to VMware’s licensing model and growing cloud adoption trends, it’s as good a time as ever to have a discussion on virtualisation strategy. That’s my cue to dive in and explore the real drivers of change in infrastructure strategy – and what IT leaders need to consider before making their next move.
Devirtualisation: A step backwards?
The idea of moving away from virtualisation to physical hardware (devirtualisation) is gaining some traction in niche cases. However, in most scenarios, the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits.
❌ Higher hardware costs - Underutilised hardware means buying more servers, which increases capital and operational expenses.
❌ Reduced scalability & agility - Without the ability to scale on demand, organisations may face performance bottlenecks or over-provisioning costs.
❌ Increased operational overhead - Managing physical infrastructure requires more manual effort, reducing IT efficiency.
❌ Longer provisioning times - Without virtualisation, IT teams struggle to respond quickly to business needs.
Unless your organisation has specific high-performance computing needs or compliance-driven air-gapped environments, devirtualisation is unlikely to be a viable strategy for the modern enterprise.
Revirtualisation: The better alternative?
If devirtualisation is a step backwards, is revirtualisation the right move? In many cases, modernising virtualisation or rehosting workloads to the cloud makes more sense – but only if done strategically.
Replatforming on a new hypervisor—Some organisations are considering shifting from VMware to alternatives (e.g., Hyper-V, KVM, Nutanix). However, this should be viewed as a tactical rather than strategic move – especially if public cloud adoption is part of the long-term roadmap.
Rehosting in the cloud – For organisations already eyeing public or hybrid cloud, accelerating migration might yield greater benefits than simply switching hypervisors.
Hyperconvergence & containerisation – The industry is moving beyond traditional hypervisors, with hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and Kubernetes-based container platforms becoming the preferred approach.
Ultimately, IT leaders should ask:
✅ Are we solving today’s cost problem, or positioning ourselves for long-term transformation?
✅ Will this move increase agility, reduce risk, and improve business responsiveness?
✅ Are we future-proofing our infrastructure, or just delaying inevitable change?
Cloud strategy: The bigger picture
While the VMware licensing changes are accelerating infrastructure discussions, the bigger picture is about long-term cloud strategy. I see three key factors shaping IT decisions in 2025:
Cloud is inevitable - but not just because of cost
Many organisations hesitate to move to the cloud due to perceived cost concerns. However, focusing purely on direct infrastructure costs misses the wider business benefits, such as:
Faster innovation – Access to cutting-edge AI, automation, and analytics tools.
Property and data centre exits – Reducing reliance on physical infrastructure.
Operational efficiency – Less time spent managing infrastructure, more time driving business value.
Vendor lock-in: A real concern, but overstated
Multi-cloud is often positioned as the answer to vendor lock-in, but the reality is more complex.
True workload portability remains challenging, and most organisations do not frequently switch cloud providers.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is reviewing hyperscaler market dominance, but widespread multi-cloud adoption remains operationally complex.
The reality? Most businesses do better by choosing one cloud provider and building deep expertise in it - rather than spreading resources too thin across multiple platforms.
IT leaders must shift their focus from infrastructure to business enablement
At the end of the day, business leaders care about transformation, not hypervisors.
Does the IT strategy enable faster time-to-market?
Can IT help automate and optimise business processes?
Is the organisation leveraging cloud for AI, data, and innovation?
The real cost isn’t infrastructure - it’s the cost of change and the lost opportunity cost of failing to modernise or adopt the latest enabling tech.
The final takeaway
If you’re debating revirtualisation vs. devirtualisation, step back and ask:
❓ Are we making a short-term decision, or setting up for long-term success?
❓ Is this the right time to replatform, or should we accelerate our cloud roadmap?
❓ Are we spending too much time debating infrastructure, rather than focusing on what technology can do for the business?
My day job is helping organisations make strategic cloud decisions that drive business value – not just react to licensing changes. If your team is evaluating infrastructure choices, or you’re looking for guidance on how to navigate any transition intelligently and efficiently, or you just want to debate any of the views in this blog, then please drop me a line at helen.gerling@shapingcloud.com.
Helen Gerling
CEO
Shaping Cloud