So, you’ve made the big decision to migrate from VMware. You’ve chosen your new vendor(s) and identified the products needed for the transition. Now comes the critical phase: figuring out HOW to move off VMware.
If you remember when you first moved to VMware, this either fills you with trepidation or a sense of “this will be easy.” In reality, there’s no way to know. One server could be a piece of cake, while the next… not so much. So, let’s dive into the ways that we can make this process as smooth as possible for you and your business.
Assessing Migration Tools
The first step is to determine if your new vendor provides a migration tool similar to VMware Converter. If so, hurray! This tool can streamline the process and make things a lot easier for you. However, there are still some things to keep in mind. Even with a clean migration path and a tool to do it, that doesn’t mean that everything is sunshine and rainbows. Consider the following:
Online vs. Offline Conversion: Does the tool support both online (live) and offline (powered-off) conversions? The choice between these methods depends on your server types and downtime allowances.
Offline Conversions
Ideal for servers like Domain Controllers (DCs) due to their minimal size and quick transition within maintenance windows.
Online Conversions
Necessary for larger servers like file servers (e.g., 4-5 TB), where extended downtime isn’t feasible.
Additional Tools
If your new vendor’s toolset doesn’t cover all scenarios, you might need to supplement with third-party tools (check out our last blog). Various companies have tools for these types of migrations, including backup solutions (ex. Veeam) for any-to-any restores, to a dedicated migration tool (ex. Carbonite/DoubleTake Move) for specific needs, like transferring to another platform. Or you may say, “we need to upgrade off of Windows 2012 anyway since it’s end of life; we’ll just build a new server and move our data,” which is also a fully viable solution, just a slower process.
Considerations and Challenges
Regardless of the tools chosen to migrate from VMware, remember that there will always be pain points and potential pitfalls that can come along with this type of project:
Hardware and Driver Issues
Moving to a new hypervisor can introduce driver conflicts or require installation of new integration tools. It can be very difficult to ensure compatibility ahead of time to avoid post-migration surprises. For example, when you migrate from hypervisor to hypervisor (similar to physical to virtual), you’re getting new hardware on the destination VM. It’s basically the equivalency of taking the OS drives out of a server and moving them to another server. You can potentially run into weird driver problems in the new environment because you haven’t installed integration tools yet, or vice versa – the old VMware tools may conflict with the new integration tools, leading to phantom NICs or broken cursors.
Licensing and Activation
Verify software licenses tied to hardware identifiers like MAC addresses or motherboard serial numbers. If you’re running some of those pieces of software, your successful migration might be foiled by a simple license activation. Make sure to address these before your migration to prevent any activation issues.
Network and Configuration Changes
You can also run into issues with IP addresses being changed during the migration, which is NOT fun to track down once it starts updating DNS automatically – and this doesn’t even include VMware oddities with VMware-specific features.
Specialized VMware Features
Did you have any VMs using NPIV or SR-IOV? What about USB passthrough for a USB licensing dongle? All of those things need to have new solutions figured out before you try to go live, or you’ll have to quickly revert back.
Planning for Success
The most important thing for these migrations to be successful is discovery and planning. At the very least, you need to check out every single server ahead of the migration to figure out if there are any extenuating circumstances before you try to actually move it. Speaking of moving it, WHERE are you moving it? We’ll cover that in our next blog. For now, take a look at our domain migration resource.
If you’d like more information about the evolving changes coming from VMware and how it may impact your IT infrastructure, please contact us by calling (502) 240-0404 or emailing info@mirazon.com