Frequently asked questions

Due to recent acquisitions and rising licensing costs, many organizations are seeking alternatives to VMware. We guide migrations to mature, open-source Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) solutions such as SUSE virtualization (Harvester) or Proxmox. This drastically reduces TCO, prevents lock-in, and offers a seamless bridge to cloud-native (container) environments.

AI requires modern, scalable architectures and easily accessible data. Large monoliths and data silos hinder this. Through our AI-Driven Application Modernization , we refactor legacy code into microservices (via APIs). This creates an agile, cloud-native foundation upon which you can securely and quickly integrate new AI models and data-driven functionalities.

Setting up Kubernetes is one thing, but 'Day 2 operations' (upgrades, security patching, storage management, and monitoring) require scarce and expensive specialized knowledge. With Managed Kubernetes from SUE, our 24/7 team completely takes the operational complexity off your hands. This allows your developers to focus 100% on building software instead of keeping the infrastructure running.

When teams independently deploy Kubernetes clusters across on-premise and various public clouds, 'sprawl' arises: an unmanageable landscape with blind spots and security risks. We solve this by implementing centralized management platforms such as SUSE Rancher Prime. With this, you manage all your clusters worldwide from a single, clear dashboard with uniform security policies.

With containerization, you package a piece of software along with all the necessary libraries and dependencies into a single isolated, lightweight package (a container). As a result, the application runs exactly the same way always and everywhere, whether on a developer's laptop, on-premise, or in the public cloud. The major difference compared to a Virtual Machine (VM) is efficiency. A VM emulates hardware and always runs a complete, heavy proprietary operating system (Guest OS). Containers, on the other hand, share the kernel (the OS) of the underlying server. The advantage: Containers are much lighter, require lower IT costs, and start up in seconds instead of minutes. Within our Application Modernization tracks, SUE deploys container technology and orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes to transform unwieldy legacy applications (which often run on slow VMs) into lightning-fast, extremely scalable cloud-native solutions.

FinOps (Financial Operations) brings IT, finance, and business together to extract maximum value from cloud investments. It is not just about saving costs, but about insightful cost allocation and predictability. SUE assists with the implementation of FinOps practices by setting up automated dashboards and making development teams aware of the financial impact of their architectural choices.

Cloud environments scale up easily, but rarely scale down automatically. High bills often arise from idle resources, overprovisioned servers, and a lack of insight into who is consuming what. With our Cloud Cost Control Check , we analyze your environment, eliminate waste, and apply rightsizing. This often results in immediate cost savings of 20% to 40%.

Although the terms are often used interchangeably, there is an important difference. Data sovereignty is purely about control over your information: you guarantee that your business data is stored and processed exclusively within the EU (and under European legislation such as the GDPR). Digital sovereignty goes a big step further. This means that you have full control and independence over your entire IT infrastructure, software, and cloud environment. You avoid vendor lock-in with foreign Big Tech parties and retain the autonomy (IT independence) to decide for yourself which technology to use. SUE helps organizations become digitally sovereign by building robust, cloud-agnostic platforms based on open-source enterprise technology (such as Linux and SUSE).

Application Modernization This means adapting legacy applications, originally built for stability, to a world where speed, flexibility, and innovation are central. This can be done, for example, by refactoring old code, redesigning the architecture, automating delivery pipelines, or migrating workloads to modern cloud platforms.

Modernization removes the constraints that slow down your organization. Legacy applications and platforms are more difficult to adapt, more expensive to manage, and increasingly dependent on scarce expertise. As a result, too much time and budget goes into keeping systems running, rather than towards improvement and innovation. By modernizing, you reduce complexity and risks, improve security and maintainability, and lay a flexible foundation for faster development and innovation. It gives management more strategic control and enables technical teams to work with architectures and tooling built for change. Want to know more? Read our blog about why application modernization is essential for long-term flexibility and control .

AI acts as an accelerator on two levels: the transformation process itself and the functionality of the end application. With AI-Driven Application Modernization , SUE uses smart tooling for automated code analysis, identifying technical debt, and restructuring legacy codebases. At the same time, we configure the new architecture so that your application is immediately ready for the secure integration of AI models and data-driven functionalities.

Technical debt arises when old code, outdated frameworks, and temporary “quick fixes” accumulate over the years. This makes applications insecure, slow, and extremely expensive to maintain. Furthermore, new talent for legacy languages is becoming increasingly scarce, and your current developers are primarily focused on fixing bugs rather than innovating. With our Application Modernization Assessment, we precisely identify your hidden technical debt and map out a concrete plan for refactoring the code. This reduces operational costs and allows your IT team to refocus on building new, value-adding features.

Rebuilding an application entirely from scratch is often a multi-year project involving high costs and significant risks. By modernizing your existing code, you retain the valuable business logic that has been built up over the years while eliminating the outdated technology surrounding it. SUE helps organizations transform their existing codebase in a targeted manner into a cloud-native architecture. This allows you to benefit much more quickly from modern scalability, security, and performance, without the uncertainty of a “big bang” build-from-scratch project.

Rehosting (lift-and-shift) moves an application 1-to-1 to the cloud with minimal modifications. Replatforming optimizes specific components (such as the transition to managed cloud databases) without changing the core code. Refactoring completely redesigns the application into a scalable, cloud-native microservices architecture. With our Application Modernization Assessment, we determine for each application exactly which approach delivers the highest ROI and the lowest risks.

With a hybrid cloud, you combine a private on-premise environment with a single public cloud (e.g., AWS or Azure). With multi-cloud, you strategically distribute workloads across multiple public clouds to leverage specific services and avoid vendor lock-in. SUE advises a cloud-agnostic approach: we design the architecture (e.g., with Kubernetes and Terraform) so that workloads remain portable across any type of cloud.

Developers often spend too much time setting up infrastructure, approvals, and configurations (cognitive load). Platform Engineering solves this by building a standardized Internal Developer Platform (IDP). With products like SUE's Multistax , developers get a self-service portal that allows them to deploy secure, compliant environments at the push of a button, which massively accelerates release cycles.

Both Proxmox and SUSE virtualization can serve as replacements for VMware. The advantage of SUSE virtualization over Proxmox is that SUSE Virtualization is container-based, allowing you to take the first step toward cloud native. This means you are not optimizing for the old world, but moving toward modern technologies.