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Introducing HyperSDK: Multi-Cloud VM Migration Platform

· 5 min read
HyperSDK Team
HyperSDK Team
Core Team

Today we are publicly releasing HyperSDK, an enterprise platform for migrating virtual machines across cloud providers and hypervisors. HyperSDK was born out of a real-world pain point: the sudden and dramatic shift in VMware licensing that left thousands of organizations scrambling for alternatives. We built a tool that makes leaving vSphere straightforward, repeatable, and observable.

The VMware Licensing Problem​

When Broadcom acquired VMware and restructured its licensing model, many enterprises saw their virtualization costs increase by 3x to 10x overnight. Perpetual licenses disappeared, bundled products were forced into expensive suites, and smaller customers lost access to affordable tiers entirely. Organizations that had built their entire infrastructure on vSphere were suddenly locked into unsustainable costs with no clear migration path.

HyperSDK exists to solve that problem. It provides a unified platform for exporting VMs from vSphere and deploying them to KVM, Proxmox, AWS, Azure, GCP, OCI, OpenStack, Alibaba Cloud, Hyper-V, or any combination of these providers.

10 Cloud Providers, One Interface​

HyperSDK supports 10 cloud providers and hypervisors through a consistent provider interface. Each provider implements the same set of port interfaces defined in our hexagonal architecture, meaning you interact with AWS the same way you interact with Proxmox or KVM. The supported providers are:

  • VMware vSphere -- source provider for exports
  • KVM/libvirt -- the most common migration target
  • Proxmox VE -- popular open-source hypervisor
  • AWS EC2 -- import as AMI or run directly
  • Microsoft Azure -- managed disk import
  • Google Cloud Platform -- Compute Engine integration
  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure -- custom image import
  • OpenStack -- private cloud deployments
  • Alibaba Cloud -- ECS instance support
  • Microsoft Hyper-V -- Windows-based hypervisors

45 Dashboard Views​

The web dashboard is not an afterthought. It ships with 45 distinct views organized into five navigation groups: Migration, Observability, Infrastructure, Tools, and System. You can browse VMs with OS-specific icons, trigger exports with a single click, monitor job progress in real time, estimate costs across providers, schedule carbon-aware migrations, and debug issues with an integrated explain mode -- all from your browser.

The dashboard is built with React 18 and Tailwind CSS, supports dark and light themes, and includes keyboard shortcuts for power users. Every view communicates with the backend through the same versioned REST API that CLI users and automation scripts consume.

205 API Endpoints​

HyperSDK exposes 205 REST API endpoints under the /api/v1/ prefix. These cover the full lifecycle of VM migration: discovery, capability detection, export, import, job management, scheduling, cost estimation, carbon tracking, RBAC, audit logging, secrets management, webhooks, backups, and system health. Every endpoint is documented, versioned, and enforces authentication through a middleware chain that includes rate limiting, request size limits, CORS, and security headers.

The API is designed for automation. You can script an entire fleet migration using curl or integrate HyperSDK into your existing CI/CD pipelines. The hyperctl CLI wraps the same API for interactive use.

Hexagonal Architecture​

Under the hood, HyperSDK follows a hexagonal (ports and adapters) architecture. The domain layer in internal/domain/ defines 70+ canonical types across 12 files. Port interfaces in internal/ports/ define 17 contracts that adapters must implement. This separation means you can swap out any infrastructure component -- database, provider, auth system -- without touching business logic.

The architecture was implemented across 10 phases, each adding a new layer of abstraction. The result is a codebase where every dependency points inward, every adapter is independently testable, and every provider satisfies compile-time interface assertions.

Upload and Deploy from the Browser​

One of the most requested features during development was the ability to upload VM disk images directly through the browser and deploy them to a target hypervisor. HyperSDK supports this end-to-end. You can upload a VMDK, qcow2, or raw disk image through the dashboard, and the platform will handle format conversion, storage allocation, and deployment. Progress is tracked in real time with a callback-based progress reader that streams updates to the UI.

System Observability​

Migrating hundreds of VMs is complex, and things will go wrong. HyperSDK includes a system health score that aggregates metrics from all connected providers, storage backends, and internal services into a single 0-100 score. When something degrades, the explain mode walks you through exactly what went wrong and why, using structured diagnostic data rather than raw log dumps.

Debug tools in the dashboard let you inspect individual jobs, replay failed exports, view audit trails, and check provider capabilities without leaving the browser. Alerts are configurable through webhooks, so you can pipe notifications to Slack, PagerDuty, or any HTTP endpoint.

What is Next​

HyperSDK is under active development. On the roadmap:

  • Kubernetes operator for managing migrations as custom resources, with condition-based status reporting already implemented in pkg/operator/controllers/
  • Parallel batch exports to migrate entire clusters in hours rather than days
  • Incremental sync for near-zero-downtime migration of production workloads
  • Terraform provider so you can declare migration workflows as infrastructure-as-code
  • Extended carbon reporting with historical trend analysis and ESG compliance dashboards

We believe VM migration should be boring infrastructure -- reliable, predictable, and invisible. HyperSDK is our contribution toward making that a reality. Try it out, file issues, and let us know what you think.