The virtualization pivot and why enterprise IT’s next move will determine the next decade

As IT leaders across the globe re-evaluate their hybrid cloud strategies, topics from AI to digital sovereignty dominate executive agendas. But in the customer conversations I have continued to have over the past 24 months, a different topic keeps coming up: whether the virtualization platform they've been running for years and depend on is still the right foundation for their workloads today, and whether it sets them up for what's coming next. Most of them are already evaluating alternatives.

For a long time, virtualization was a "set it and forget it" part of the stack. That isn't the case anymore. Shifting commercial models and the demands of AI workloads have turned what used to be a routine renewal into an urgent decision. For many, the immediate priority is finding a lower-risk migration path to protect current operations. But as organizations make these strategic decisions, it's important to recognize that the platform you choose today will serve as the operational foundation for your infrastructure. 

Two-stacks is a problem

As we look toward an AI-driven future, IDC projects the creation of over 1 billion net new applications by 2028. This growth is forcing enterprises to scale their container footprints at an unprecedented rate. However, this progress often creates a "dual stack" challenge, where organizations face the heavy lifting of maintaining separate virtualization and containerized environments.

This fragmentation typically leads to:

• Inconsistent tooling and disparate team skill sets across teams
• Operational friction when trying to connect traditional VM-based applications with modern microservice based architectures
• Redundant costs and unnecessary long-term complexity

A production-tested foundation

When we talk about Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization, a native feature of Red Hat OpenShift, we’re talking about a technology that has been running production workloads at scale for years. It is built on KVM, a hypervisor that has provided enterprise-grade stability, security, and broad hardware support for nearly two decades. KVM powers some of the world’s largest cloud architectures, including the hyperscalers that dominate CIO conversations.

OpenShift Virtualization brings that same hypervisor together with KubeVirt, an open source project with broad industry backing and contributions from more than 2,000 organizations, to let you run virtual machines (VMs) on the same platform as your containerized workloads. The technology underneath the platform isn't new or unproven; it's the result of years of community and Red Hat investment, and it's already running production workloads inside some of the largest enterprises in the world.

Modernizing on your terms

The goal isn't to force a high-risk application rewrite before you're ready. It’s about a strategic simplification that provides a clear, lower-risk pathway for modernization.

According to the latest IDC White Paper, sponsored by Red Hat, this approach allows organizations to:

• Protect existing investments: Continue using a validated ecosystem of storage, networking, and backup integrations so your current infrastructure remains functional.
• Modernize on your terms: Run legacy VMs unchanged while bringing modern practices like GitOps workflows and CI/CD pipelines to them from day one.
• Restore predictability: Move to a subscription-based model that offers long-term planning stability, removing the uncertainty of shifting legacy licensing structures.

The clearest example of this in the IDC paper is One New Zealand. The telco's principal cloud and infrastructure architect, Umer Younis, walked IDC through what changed after they moved to OpenShift Virtualization. Using the Red Hat Migration Factory with Ansible Automation, alongside Red Hat Professional Services, they have been converting existing VMs at pace. The same staff now manages both VMs and containers. Licensing costs have come down through the Red Hat subscription model. Time to market is faster because the pipelines are consistent across both workload types. And the open source foundation of KVM and KubeVirt protects the company against being locked into another single vendor's commercial decisions down the road.

The platform provides flexibility as well. OpenShift Virtualization is also available on cloud services editions of Red Hat OpenShift through AWS, Microsoft Azure, and other leading public cloud providers, so the same operational model travels with your workloads, on premises, at the edge, or in the public cloud.

The bottom line

As you reassess your virtualization strategy, the question isn't simply "Where do I move my VMs?" The real question is: "What foundation gives me the most flexibility for the future?"

By unifying VMs and containers under a single modern platform, you can increase hardware density and reduce physical footprints. This isn't just about technical efficiency; it directly supports corporate sustainability goals while eliminating the cost of managing parallel, disconnected stacks.

For a deeper dive into the technical stack, the One New Zealand case study, and architectural convergence,read the full IDC White Paper: A Proven Modern Virtualization Technical Stack.

IDC White Paper, sponsored by Red Hat, A Proven Modern Virtualization Technical Stack, #US54446426-WP, April 2026