Tesco is replacing VMware with the open source platform Proxmox across its stores and edge estate, and the evidence is the retailer’s own recruitment advertising. A job advertisement for a Head of Software Engineering, Edge Platform, based in Bengaluru, describes the role as leading the migration from VMware to Proxmox and building a software driven edge management platform to provision, manage and maintain the retail edge estate through its lifecycle. The successful candidate will own a secure, reliable and cost effective alternative virtualisation platform, with success measured by a safe and predictable migration, validated store configurations and reduced legacy dependencies.
The stakes are operational. Tesco’s own advertisement says the edge platform provides the computing environment that lets applications run across its stores, and that store technology must stay dependable despite connectivity disruptions and constrained local resources across thousands of locations, because failures directly affect store operations, staff productivity and customer experience.
The context is a pricing fight that has already reached court. Tesco is suing VMware over support for its perpetual licences, and earlier reporting by The Register said Tesco turned down at least four offers from Broadcom, including one proposing 23.5 million dollars for a single year of VMware Cloud Foundation and mainframe software and support, which Tesco characterised as about 175 percent more than it believed it should pay, with a 350 percent increase on the mainframe offerings. At that price, building an in house platform team on open source software is arithmetic, not ideology.
Tesco has not announced the migration’s scope or timetable beyond the advertisement. What the advertisement establishes is the destination platform, named in writing for the first time, and that the migration is an engineering programme with named success criteria rather than a negotiation posture.