Vendor migrations in Edinburgh —
VMware, Cisco, on-prem to cloud, done safely.
Servnet runs parallel-run vendor migrations for Edinburgh businesses facing Broadcom-era VMware pricing, Cisco end-of-life, on-prem to cloud lift-and-shift or platform consolidation. Discovery → pilot → migration waves → decommission, with the legacy platform left running until the new one passes every acceptance test. Edinburgh cutovers happen Friday-evening to Sunday so Monday open is clean across New Town finance, Scottish Gov estates and NHS Lothian.
Why Edinburgh is in the middle of every current migration cycle
Edinburgh concentrates firms feeling current migration triggers — VMware Broadcom on New Town finance VMware estates, Cisco end-of-life across multi-site Scottish council networks, NHS Scotland cloud-shift programmes, and steady on-prem-to-cloud move across Edinburgh tech.
VMware → Nutanix for Scottish regulated estates
Broadcom's VMware pricing is forcing the question on New Town finance + NHS Scotland customers. We run VMware → Nutanix AHV (most common in regulated estates), VMware → vSAN ESA, VMware → Azure Stack HCI.
Cisco → Fortinet for Scottish councils + multi-site
Scottish multi-site customers (Scottish Gov, councils, multi-branch retail) consolidating ageing Cisco onto Fortinet single-pane — driven by SD-WAN refresh and TCO pressure.
On-prem → Azure UK / AWS eu-west-2
Edinburgh tech businesses and FCA-regulated firms lift-and-shifting from Scottish DC footprint to AWS eu-west-2 or Azure UK-South — FCA-aware migrations with regulator documentation prepared.
Exchange-on-prem → M365 for Scottish Gov + universities
Frequent second-wave for Scottish public-sector — Exchange-on-prem to M365 GCC, on-prem PBX to Teams Voice, integrated with the customer's existing identity stack.
What a Servnet Edinburgh migration delivers
Discovery + bill-of-quantities
Complete picture of the current estate turned into a migration BoQ you can defend at CFO/CTO review.
Target architecture design
Reference architecture for the destination — Nutanix cluster sizing, vSAN ESA tier, AWS landing zone, FortiGate topology.
Pilot environment in week 3-4
Non-production pilot built on the new platform — typically two weeks of soak with customer's actual workload patterns.
Wave-based migration with parallel-run
Production workloads migrated in waves — low-criticality first, then BAU, then customer-facing systems last.
Weekend cutover windows
For New Town finance customers, cutover Friday-evening onwards with engineers on-site through the weekend. Soak through Sunday, post-mortem Monday.
Old-platform decommission + ITAD
Once the new platform has run clean for the agreed soak, we decommission the legacy estate — chain-of-custody, NCSC-aligned wipe, certified disposal.
Edinburgh migration engagements we run
- ▸New Town finance off VMware to NutanixNatWest, Standard Life-class firms with 200–800 VMs moving from vSphere to Nutanix AHV — typically 10–14 weeks discovery-to-decom, regulated workload migrated last.
- ▸Multi-site Scottish councils Cisco → FortinetCEC + Lothian councils with multi-site Cisco ASA + Meraki consolidating onto FortiGate + FortiSwitch.
- ▸Edinburgh tech on-prem → cloudFreeAgent / Float / Administrate-class Edinburgh tech moving Scottish DC footprint to AWS eu-west-2 — with SOC 2 evidence prepared.
- ▸NHS Scotland boards to AzureNHS Lothian + other boards migrating off ageing on-prem to Azure UK-South — NHS Scotland Information Security Policy alignment retained.
- ▸Scottish Gov departments to GovWiFi / Azure GovScottish Gov departments and ALBs migrating off on-prem Exchange and legacy on-prem networking onto M365 GCC and Azure Government.
- ▸Edinburgh law firms — on-prem PMS to vendor cloudBurness Paull, Brodies-class firms migrating practice-management from on-prem to vendor cloud — coordinated with outsourcing-policy committee.
How an Edinburgh migration runs week-by-week
Weeks 1–2 — discovery + estate map
Automated discovery + interviews with application owners. Produces migration BoQ and risk register.
Weeks 3–4 — target design + pilot build
Target architecture signed off by customer architecture board. Pilot environment built and non-critical workload landed.
Weeks 5–8 — wave migrations
Production workloads migrated in 4–6 waves, each validated before next. Customer change board signs off each wave.
Weeks 9–10 — soak + decom
New platform runs clean for agreed soak (2–4 weeks). Once signed off, decommission begins.
Edinburgh vendor migrations — common questions
We're a New Town firm with 200 VMs on vSphere — Broadcom has tripled our bill. What's right?
For most Edinburgh finance firms with that footprint, Nutanix AHV (regulated-friendly, predictable per-node pricing, AHV included) or vSAN ESA (staying VMware but losing dedicated SAN). Model 3-year TCO including migration cost — typical Nutanix payback is 14–22 months on a 200-VM estate.
Can you migrate without taking down our New Town trading floor?
Yes — point of parallel-run. Build the new platform alongside the old, migrate trading-floor systems last, validate every market data feed and OMS during pre-open hours, only cut over once trading-tech team signs off.
How do you handle FCA outsourcing materiality for an Edinburgh cloud migration?
For FCA-authorised customers we produce the technical input — which IBS touch the migrated platform, what the destination region's resilience looks like, exit plan if the cloud becomes unavailable. Your compliance team writes the final memo; we provide technical evidence.
Can you do Cisco → Fortinet across CEC + Lothian councils with no downtime?
In most cases yes — install Fortinet in parallel, migrate sites one at a time over evening windows with rollback ready, decommission Cisco only after all sites stabilise.
How long does a 200-VM VMware → Nutanix migration take in Edinburgh?
Discovery → final-VM-on-new-platform is typically 10–14 weeks for a 200-VM estate. Actual migration work is shorter (4–6 weeks); rest is discovery, design and soak.
We're an Edinburgh tech business wanting to leave our Scottish DC for AWS — can you do it?
Yes — frequent engagement for Edinburgh tech. AWS landing-zone design (multi-account, SSO, guardrails, networking), application-by-application migration, Scottish DC exit. Typical timeline 3–6 months end-to-end.
Other services we deliver in Edinburgh
Facing a VMware bill, Cisco EOL or cloud migration in Edinburgh?
Send us the platform, the trigger and the timeline. We'll come back with a discovery scope and a TCO model.