Equinix is sunsetting its bare metal as a service (BMaaS) offering in June 2026. If you’re running any workloads on Equinix Metal, the time to start planning your migration is now. Like, right this minute.

In this piece, I’ll explain why that is, how to ensure mission-critical workloads aren’t disrupted as you migrate, and how you can find a replacement for Equinix Metal that delivers the performance you need while also helping ensure your operations run smoothly.

The urgency of now: Why it’s (almost past) time to start planning your migration

You chose Equinix Metal for a reason – likely because it delivered the performance you needed for the workloads you’re running on it. And now you’re faced with the unpleasant reality that it will soon no longer be available.

Maybe you don’t have the expertise in-house to assess the alternatives (who does, these days?). Maybe you don’t have the time – after all, you’ve still got to keep workloads available and performant regardless of where they’re running. (You know, your day job?)

Or maybe you’ve never done a migration like this and you figure there's still time to work everything out. You can start after you get past this particularly busy week. (Which you say to yourself every week.)

Regardless of your situation, the reality is that ten months isn’t as much time as it seems to migrate mission-critical workloads. That’s because doing so requires you to also:

• Rank the criticality of all workloads running on EQ Metal so you can prioritize which to move first.
• Identify which other workloads have dependencies on those running on EQ Metal (and vice versa) so you can plan a migration that doesn’t disrupt key business activities.
• Identify an alternative to EQ Metal to migrate workloads to.
• Actually do the migration.

That’s a lot!

And the stakes are high. Without the proactive management by folks who have done an EQ Metal migration before, you might end up creating as many problems as you solve.

Don’t just replace your infrastructure, upgrade

Here’s another consideration: do you want to find a one-to-one replacement (i.e., another BMaaS provider) or do you want to use this moment as a chance to upgrade your hosting infrastructure, simplify organizational complexities, and shift to a more adaptable posture?

The question is one many organizations are considering today, even if they’re not hosting workloads on Equinix Metal.

Increasingly, IT teams are aiming to get out of the “owning hardware” business, in much the same way they were looking to get out of the data center business a decade or so ago.

Why? As operations employees and operational resources become scarce, many IT leaders are seeking to optimize workload performance while also minimizing the in-house requirements to maintain that performance.

This, incidentally, is why BMaaS tends to become less appealing over time. The whiz-bang tech that may have attracted you initially becomes less interesting when you’re trying to run it as a business function years later. Speeds and feeds are much less critical than maintaining uptime and keeping stakeholders happy with performance.

Which is all to say: if these are pain points you’re experiencing, you may want to upgrade from Equinix Metal to a bare metal offering from a managed services provider. With that setup, you’ll get not only the performance you need from bare metal but also the human services (from consulting and strategy to engineering and troubleshooting) that Equinix doesn’t offer.

Position your organization for the hybrid future

While having a tight timeline to complete a highly complex and mission-critical undertaking is not most people’s idea of fun, it does offer an excellent opportunity to force the kind of decision it’s otherwise easy to kick down the road indefinitely.

Namely: is it time to reconsider your hosting infrastructure?

With the rise of AI functionality, there's been a lot of chatter about cloud repatriation, as organizations look for less-expensive alternatives to running AI workloads in the public cloud. The EOL of Equinix Metal offers a similar opportunity to reconsider what's possible.

Given the reality that moving workloads off of Metal will likely also require you to touch other connected workloads, it’s only practical to take time to rethink where those workloads are hosted as well.

This is doubly true if you don’t have much infrastructure management expertise in-house: if you’re going to work with service providers, you might as well get their input on your infrastructure as a whole. You may discover additional opportunities to update your hosting for better performance and/or lower cost.

Indeed, many organizations repatriating from the public cloud are discovering that a hybrid setup makes the most sense, both financially and operationally, for their current and near-future operations.

Prevent the next vendor-imposed scramble: Partner to improve performance and simplify management

One of the most challenging things about IT operations work is that it’s rarely noticed unless something goes wrong. When that does happen, it’s often a huge headache with little reward.

That’s why collaborating with a trusted managed services partner can be so valuable: if your current vendor decides to EOL a product you’re using, they can recommend another and oversee the transition. If your current use of infrastructure resources is causing cloud bills to creep up, they can investigate and recommend adjustments.

If your offerings change, they can make sure your infrastructure accommodates your new needs – without first having a painful outage or monstrous bill.

No business will stand still for the next decade. As you think about migrating from Metal, consider moving to an infrastructure supported by a team that’s ready to pivot with you when the next big change drops.