Infrastructure migrations · for small & mid-sized business in Europe

Get off software that keeps raising its price.

Per-core VMware subscriptions. Per-core Windows Server and SQL Server licences. Microsoft 365 seats that just went up again. We move you to open-source equivalents on a fixed price and a fixed date — cutover outside business hours, with a tested rollback at every step.

  • Fixed price & date
  • Cutover off-hours
  • Rollback at every wave
  • No lock-in

Savings calculator

What do your licences really cost — and what would you keep?

Pick what you run today. The calculator applies each vendor's real licensing rules — core minimums included — and compares three years against the open-source equivalent.

Today · per year—
After the move—
You keep over 3 years—before a one-off, fixed-price migration
Turn this into a migration plan →

Exchange rate used: 1 € = US$ (ECB reference rate, Sep 2026). Everything is calculated in your browser — nothing you enter is sent anywhere.

Why now

The software didn't change. The bill did.

Vendors reprice on their schedule, not yours — and the open-source equivalents have quietly become the safe choice for the same workloads.

72cores — the minimum VMware bills per order since April 2025, on top of 16 per CPU
+17%Microsoft 365 Business Basic from 1 July 2026 (Business Standard +12%)
16 / 4cores you must license per Windows Server / per SQL Server instance — whatever you actually use
€0licence cost of Proxmox, Linux, PostgreSQL and Nextcloud — support only if you want it

The tooling for these moves is mature — Proxmox ships a native VMware importer, PostgreSQL has well-trodden migration tools, Nextcloud has desktop and mobile sync clients. The risk sits in the planning and the cutover. That's the part we do.

Sources: partner-reported VMware pricing (Redress Compliance, AceMQ 2026 renewal research), Microsoft Windows Server 2025 and SQL Server 2025 pricing, Microsoft 365 price changes effective 1 July 2026, Proxmox and Nextcloud subscription pricing.

Migrations

One migration practice. The exits we're asked for most.

VMware vSphereProxmox VE

Same hardware, same VMs — no per-core bill.

Full inventory and dependency map, VM conversion with the Proxmox import tooling, VirtIO drivers for Windows guests, networks and storage mapped one-to-one, Proxmox Backup Server with tested restores, and an HA cluster where you need it.

  • ESXi / vCenter, vSAN or SAN storage
  • Windows & Linux guests
  • Backups verified before cutover
Windows ServerLinux

File, web, print and application servers moved to Debian or Ubuntu — no core licences, no CALs, fewer forced reboots, the same services for your users.

SQL ServerPostgreSQL

Schema and data converted, application compatibility proven in a pilot, replication and backups set up — for the databases whose applications support PostgreSQL.

Microsoft 365Nextcloud

Files, calendars, contacts and chat on infrastructure you control — on-prem or with an EU hosting provider. Email stays with a proper mail provider.

AWS / AzureEU / your racks

Steady workloads that never needed a hyperscaler brought back to an EU host or your own servers — with a bill you can predict.

How a migration runs

Five steps. The old platform stays intact until you sign off.

  1. 1

    Assess

    Every server, VM, database and licence inventoried. You get a written plan and a fixed quote with a fixed date — before any work starts.

  2. 2

    Pilot

    One or two non-critical systems move first. Performance, backups and restores are proven on your own workloads.

  3. 3

    Plan the cutover

    A runbook per wave, agreed maintenance windows, and a rollback path written down for every step.

  4. 4

    Cut over

    Wave by wave, outside your business hours. If anything looks wrong, that wave rolls back — nothing on the old platform is deleted on the way.

  5. 5

    Hand over

    Documentation, runbooks and full admin access. Run it yourself — or let our sister practice StayPatched keep it monitored and patched.

Nothing switches during your working day. Every wave has a rollback, and the old systems stay untouched until you've confirmed the new ones — a migration should never be the outage.

What you can hold us to

Migrations go wrong in the planning. So the plan is the contract.

Fixed price, fixed date

Agreed after the assessment and before work starts. No hourly meter running in the background.

Rollback at every wave

Each step can be reversed. You never bet the company on a single night.

Off-hours cutover

Evenings and weekends. Your team starts Monday on the new platform, not in the middle of a move.

You own everything

Open-source stack, full admin credentials, written documentation. No lock-in — to a vendor or to us.

Straight talk

When you probably shouldn't migrate — yet.

Who we are

Migratr is a European infrastructure practice for small and mid-sized companies. Our way of working comes from eight years of running IT for a 130-person company across three countries — including moving its own VMware estate to Proxmox: plan first, prove it on a pilot, cut over when nobody is working, keep a way back.

For larger projects we bring in additional vetted engineers. The plan, the price and the date stay ours to keep.

Sister practice of StayPatched · EU-based · serving Germany, Switzerland and the wider EU · English, with German available.

Questions

What people ask before they move.

How much downtime does it cause?

Each system is offline only during its own cutover window, scheduled outside your business hours and written into the plan before we start. The old platform stays untouched until you confirm the new one.

Do we need new hardware?

Usually not — Proxmox, Linux and PostgreSQL run on the servers you already have. Compatibility (controllers, NICs, storage) is checked during the assessment.

What if an application only supports Windows or SQL Server?

Then it stays where it is. The assessment separates what can move from what shouldn't — we never force an application onto a platform its vendor doesn't support.

What about our Windows virtual machines on VMware?

They move to Proxmox as they are, with VirtIO drivers installed as part of the conversion. The procedure is proven on non-critical machines in the pilot first.

How long does it take?

It depends on the estate. For a few servers it's typically weeks rather than months — and the completion date is fixed in the quote.

Can we keep some systems on the old platform?

Yes. Running both side by side during the transition is normal, and some systems may stay where they are if that's the right call.

What happens after the migration?

You get documentation, runbooks and full admin access and can run it yourself — or StayPatched keeps it monitored and patched.

Get a migration plan

Tell us what you run. Get a fixed plan back.

A short call, then a written assessment: what moves as-is, what needs care, what should stay — with a fixed price and a fixed date. No obligation.

  • A reply from an engineer, not a sales sequence
  • Your details are used only to reply
  • If migrating isn't worth it for you, we'll say so

Your details are used only to reply to you. See the privacy notice.