When you plan a VMware or data center migration to AWS, the estimate starts with compute: instance counts, families, sizes. Storage gets defaulted, usually to Amazon EBS, and the plan moves on. For most workloads that default is never revisited, and it is quietly expensive.
lower storage cost when workloads are assessed for FSxN instead of defaulting to EBS.
Storage defaults distort the business case
Storage is a recurring share of what a workload costs to run on AWS. Unlike the one-time work of moving a workload, that cost repeats every month for as long as the workload runs, so a choice made in a hurry at assessment time compounds for years.
When storage is assumed instead of assessed, the distortion shows up in a few predictable ways:
- Provisioned for peak, paid for at rest. EBS capacity, IOPS, and throughput are set per volume. Sizing each workload for its worst-case moment means paying for headroom that sits idle the rest of the time.
- One default across unlike workloads. File shares, databases, and application tiers have different access patterns. A single storage default cannot be the best fit for all of them at once.
- A baseline that is wrong from day one. The business case everyone approves is built on the assessment. If storage is a rough default there, the TCO baseline is off before the first workload moves, and the gap surfaces later, when changing it is costly.
- Better-fit options stay invisible. A default never surfaces the alternative. Workloads that would run cheaper and better on FSxN are never flagged, because nothing compared them.
The problem is not that EBS is wrong. It is that "EBS by default" is a decision no one actually made.
What we added
The CloudHedge assessment platform now evaluates Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP (FSxN) alongside EBS, inside the same assessment and business-case workflow:
- Cost comparison: EBS and FSxN side by side for each workload.
- TCO modeling: the difference quantified before you commit.
- Business-case modeling: storage folded into the migration case with real numbers.
- Storage recommendation: FSxN surfaces as a selectable, data-backed option, not a manual afterthought.
Why FSxN
FSxN is more than cheaper storage in some scenarios. It supports NFS and CIFS, optimizes file and database workloads, and fits EKS and Kubernetes environments, which makes it a match for the VMware re-host and modernization projects driving today's migrations. For those projects, storage choice moves both migration economics and long-term operating cost.
What you gain
- Migration decisions backed by assessment data, not defaults.
- Storage economics visible before workloads move.
- A more defensible AWS migration business case.
- Storage matched to each workload's performance and enterprise requirements.
Storage is one lever on migration economics; funding and licensing are others. As an AWS Migration Acceleration Program (MAP) qualified partner that also delivers AWS Optimization and Licensing Assessments (OLA), CloudHedge helps eligible VMware and data center migrations access MAP funding and right-size licensing alongside the storage savings the assessment surfaces. The business case improves from several directions at once: a better storage decision, optimized licensing, and AWS investment behind the move.
Available now, and what's next
FSxN assessment and TCO modeling is available today in the CloudHedge assessment platform. Storage migration orchestration is on the roadmap, and we will follow this announcement with a technical walkthrough of how the EBS-versus-FSxN comparison works.
FSxN assessment is one example of a broader pattern. What the assessment platform evaluates keeps widening: discovery and dependency mapping established what to move, and storage economics now informs how to move it without overpaying. Each addition takes another migration decision out of guesswork and puts it on data.
Planning a VMware or AWS migration?
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