AWS Transform, Microsoft's migration accelerators, and a new generation of AI-powered tools are changing how organizations approach workload migration. But the automation gap for on-premises Nutanix destinations is real and worth understanding.
AWS Transform went generally available in May 2025, bringing AI-powered workload migration automation to a market that has long relied on manual assessment and spreadsheet-based wave planning. A new category of agentic AI migration tools has emerged that promises to automate discovery, dependency mapping, and migration execution. These tools are genuinely useful. They also have meaningful limitations for organizations planning VMware exits to on-premises Nutanix environments.
What Agentic AI Migration Tools Do Well
AWS Transform uses machine learning to analyze application code, database schemas, and runtime behavior to identify dependencies that static inventory tools miss. For organizations migrating legacy Java or .NET applications to cloud-native architectures, this capability genuinely accelerates what was previously a months-long manual assessment process.
AWS has reported that Transform can generate migration wave plans for 500 VMs in 15 minutes and perform networking translations up to 80 times faster than traditional methods. Partners in pilot programs cut execution times by up to 90 percent.
The On-Premises Nutanix Gap
The limitation of current agentic AI migration tools is their destination specificity. AWS Transform is optimized for migrations to AWS. Azure Migrate is optimized for migrations to Azure. These tools are designed, trained, and validated for cloud destination scenarios. They do not provide comparable automation for migrations to on-premises Nutanix AHV environments.
This matters for a significant portion of the VMware migration market. CloudBolt's January 2026 survey found that the majority of VMware customers are not moving primarily to public cloud. The migration landscape is diverse: some workloads to cloud IaaS, some to on-premises Nutanix, and many remaining in hybrid states.
What the Automation Gap Costs
Gartner estimates, as reported by Network World, that seven to ten full-time employees are required for one month just to scope a large-scale VMware migration. For organizations whose destination is on-premises Nutanix rather than public cloud, this overhead is fully absorbed by internal teams; there is no cloud-native AI tooling to accelerate it.
Closing the On-Premises Automation Gap
ReadyWorks addresses the automation gap for on-premises Nutanix migrations directly. The VM Accelerator provides automated discovery and inventory normalization across vCenter environments, establishing the clean data foundation that wave planning requires.
VirtualReady extends that foundation with automated dependency mapping, stakeholder outreach, wave planning, change management integration, and migration execution orchestration, providing for on-premises Nutanix destinations the automation that agentic AI tools provide for cloud-bound workloads.
READY TO ACT?
Get the automation your on-premises Nutanix migration deserves. Download the ReadyWorks VM Accelerator free for 45 days and close the automation gap in your migration program. Learn more about VM Accelerator
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is AWS Transform and what does it do?
AWS Transform is an AI-powered migration tool that went generally available in May 2025. It uses machine learning to automate application code analysis, dependency mapping, and migration planning for workloads moving to AWS cloud services.
Why do agentic AI tools not support on-premises Nutanix migrations?
These tools are designed, trained, and optimized for their respective cloud destinations. AWS Transform is trained on AWS migration patterns. On-premises Nutanix migrations have different dependency profiles and operational models that current cloud-focused AI tools are not designed to address.
What automation is available for on-premises Nutanix migrations?
ReadyWorks provides automation for the full migration lifecycle for on-premises Nutanix destinations: automated inventory discovery with VM Accelerator, dependency mapping and wave planning with VirtualReady, automated stakeholder outreach, change management integration, migration execution orchestration, and post-migration monitoring.
Should organizations use both cloud AI migration tools and ReadyWorks for hybrid migration programs?
Yes, for organizations with workloads moving to both cloud and on-premises Nutanix destinations. Cloud-bound workloads can leverage AWS Transform or Azure Migrate. On-premises Nutanix workloads use ReadyWorks for equivalent automation on the on-premises path.
