ShapeBlue and NTT DATA Hungary are combining global Apache CloudStack expertise with local market knowledge and managed services to help enterprises move from vendor dependency to infrastructure freedom.

ShapeBlue is pleased to announce a partnership with NTT DATA Hungary to help enterprises across Hungary and Eastern Europe move away from restrictive vendor dependencies and towards infrastructure built for long-term reliability, operational freedom and cost control. The partnership brings together two complementary areas of expertise. ShapeBlue contributes deep technical knowledge of Apache CloudStack, extensive experience designing and supporting large-scale cloud environments, and proven VMware-to-CloudStack migration capabilities. NTT DATA Hungary contributes strong local relationships, a detailed understanding of the regional market, established VMware and infrastructure expertise, and the managed services capabilities required to support customers throughout their transformation.
Together, the two companies can provide enterprises with a complete journey: from assessing the existing VMware estate and building the business case, through architecture, proof of concept and migration, to ongoing local operation and 24/7 expert support.

 

Why Еnterprises Аre Reassessing VMware

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in November 2023. Since then, changes to product packaging, licensing and commercial models have led many organisations to reassess whether their current virtualisation platform still supports their long-term financial and operational goals.
This is not a question of whether VMware remains a capable technology. It is a question of predictability, control and strategic fit. Infrastructure leaders need to understand what they will pay, which capabilities they genuinely need and how much freedom they will retain as their requirements evolve.
The timeline is also becoming more important. VMware vSphere 8.0 reaches the end of general support on 11 October 2027. Perpetually licensed deployments will not simply stop working on that date, but operating without the same level of patches, fixes and vendor support changes the risk profile. For larger environments, evaluating alternatives, validating the target architecture and migrating workloads safely can take many months. The right time to begin is before renewal or support deadlines turn a strategic decision into an urgent one.

 

Why Apache CloudStack

Apache CloudStack is a mature open-source infrastructure-as-a-service platform for building and managing private, public and hybrid clouds. It provides the management layer above hypervisors such as KVM, bringing together compute, networking, storage, user and account management, automation and a modern user interface in a single platform.
CloudStack may generate less industry buzz than some newer platforms, but that is part of its strength: it is established technology designed to run critical cloud infrastructure reliably at scale. The project began in 2008, became an Apache Software Foundation project in 2012 and is used in production by service providers, enterprises and public-sector organisations around the world.
For enterprises assessing a VMware alternative, CloudStack provides capabilities that matter beyond basic virtualisation: multi-tenancy, advanced networking, resource accounting, APIs, high availability, scalable orchestration, GPU workloads and options for deploying and managing Kubernetes. Its open-source model also gives organisations greater control over their infrastructure roadmap and reduces dependence on the commercial decisions of a single software vendor.
Different platforms suit different environments. The important distinction is that CloudStack is not simply a hypervisor manager. It is a complete cloud orchestration platform designed for organisations that need enterprise scale, operational governance and cloud-like self-service.

 

Combining Global CloudStack Expertise with Local Delivery

ShapeBlue and NTT DATA already have a history of working together in other markets. The new cooperation in Hungary extends that experience into Eastern Europe with a delivery model designed around local accountability and specialist technical depth.
ShapeBlue is the world’s largest independent integrator of Apache CloudStack. Its teams design, build and upgrade CloudStack environments, provide consulting and engineering services, deliver training and certification, and support production clouds around the clock. ShapeBlue also brings practical migration experience and ShapeBlue Migrate, its purpose-built tool for automating migrations from VMware to Apache CloudStack.
NTT DATA Hungary brings the customer relationships, regional context and managed services expertise needed to turn a platform decision into a sustainable operating model. Its teams understand both the source VMware environment and the destination infrastructure. Customers can therefore work with one local partner across hardware, Linux and KVM, CloudStack, migration and ongoing operations, backed by ShapeBlue’s specialist CloudStack engineering and support capabilities.

This combination gives customers continuity throughout the project. The same partnership can support assessment, solution design, migration planning, implementation and day-two operations, while leaving organisations free to operate the environment themselves if that becomes their preferred model.

A Partner Event in Budapest

On 15 September, ShapeBlue joined NTT DATA Hungary at a dedicated event in Budapest to introduce Apache CloudStack to regional enterprises and demonstrate a practical path away from VMware dependency.
The programme included five expert-led sessions covering the market changes driving VMware reassessment, the architecture and maturity of Apache CloudStack, enterprise feature requirements, total cost of ownership, migration planning and the operational model available through NTT DATA Hungary and ShapeBlue. The day also featured two live demonstrations: an Apache CloudStack environment presented by NTT DATA Hungary and a VMware migration performed with ShapeBlue Migrate by the ShapeBlue team.

The live demonstrations were particularly important. Enterprises do not need another theoretical comparison; they need evidence that the target platform works and that workloads can reach it through a controlled, repeatable process. Showing both the destination environment and the migration workflow connected the technology discussion with the practical reality of transformation.

 

 

Balázs Tóth, Presales Consultant at NTT Data Hungary, opened the platform discussion with the question facing many infrastructure teams: what should organisations do before the vSphere 8.0 support milestone arrives? His session traced the market changes since the Broadcom acquisition and examined the alternatives enterprises are currently considering, including Red Hat OpenShift, Nutanix, Proxmox, Hyper-V and HPE Morpheus.
The conclusion was not that one platform is right for every use case. It was that enterprise customers need to evaluate the complete operating model: scalability, multi-tenancy, networking, Kubernetes integration, GPU support, chargeback and accounting, automation, support, migration risk and long-term control. Following a detailed assessment of those requirements, NTT DATA Hungary identified Apache CloudStack as a strong foundation for enterprise cloud environments.

 

 

Ivet Petrova, CRO at ShapeBlue, then focused on the maturity and real-world adoption of CloudStack. The session showed how a technology that is sometimes less visible in mainstream infrastructure conversations has been running significant production environments for many years. Customer examples and migration case studies demonstrated that moving from VMware to CloudStack is not an experimental path, but one already taken by organisations that require reliability, scale and commercial predictability. The discussion also widened the migration question beyond VMware. The same principles of cost control, workload portability and infrastructure ownership are relevant to organisations reconsidering long-term dependence on public cloud platforms. CloudStack can support private cloud, service-provider cloud and repatriation strategies, giving enterprises another destination for workloads that need greater control or more predictable economics.

 

András Fülöp, Business Development Manager at NTT DATA Europe & Latam, connected the technical decision with the business case. His session examined licensing predictability, support quality, total cost of ownership and the expected return on investment across different migration scenarios. It also explained how assessment, architecture, hardware, Linux and KVM, CloudStack, migration and managed services can be brought together through one coordinated engagement.
A VMware migration does not make an organisation’s existing knowledge irrelevant. Skills in virtualisation, networking, storage, capacity planning and workload operations remain essential. Teams add Linux, KVM and CloudStack knowledge to that foundation, supported by structured training, certification and expert assistance from NTT DATA Hungary and ShapeBlue.

The event also presented а live demo of Apache CloudStack done by NTT Data and a live demo of ShapeBlue Migrate, delivered by Jithin Raju from ShapeBlue.

 

A practical Next Step for Eastern European Enterprises

The partnership between ShapeBlue and NTT DATA Hungary gives organisations in Eastern Europe a credible route from platform uncertainty to a supported open-source cloud strategy. It combines local engagement and managed services with specialist CloudStack engineering, automated migration capabilities and global 24/7 support.
The next step is not an immediate commitment to migrate. It is a structured assessment of the current environment, business requirements, costs, dependencies and target operating model. From there, NTT DATA Hungary and ShapeBlue can validate the proposed architecture through a demonstration or proof of concept and build a phased migration plan based on real workloads.
Enterprises that begin this work early can make the platform decision on their own terms, with time to test, plan and build internal confidence.