Manual AWS to AHV migration

By | November 7, 2018
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This is going to be the first of two blogs.  This first blog will be about the manual migration from AWS to AHV.  The second will use a product called Sureline.

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have an Amazon EC2 Windows instance with a large volume to accommodate the size of the machine you want to migrate.  This secondary drive must be excluded from the conversion.  Ensure VirtIO drivers are installed on the Linux Server or the Nutanix drivers on the Windows system.

Procedure

  1. Install vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance you want to convert.
  2. Create a conversion task to import the source Amazon EC2 Windows instance as a Workstation destination:
    1. First, start vCenter Converter Standalone on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance.
    2. Next, click Convert a Machine in the application menu to start the Conversion wizard.
    3. Select Powered-on machine from the Select source type menu on the Specify Source page and connect This local machine.
    4. Click Next to proceed to the Specify Destination page.
    5. Select VMware Workstation (Latest version) from the Specify Destination page from the VMware product list.
    6. Type a name for the destination virtual machine and browse to the temporary volume containing the virtual machine.
    7. Click Next to proceed to the View/Edit Options page.
    8. On the View/Edit Options page, select Data to Copy in the list of options.
    9. Select the check box before the temporary volume to exclude it from the conversion task.
    10. Click Next to proceed to the View Summary page.
    11. Check the summary of the conversion task and click Finish to submit it to the tasks list.

    A*.vmx and a*.vmdkthe file is created during the conversion.

  3. On the temporary volume/drive on the Amazon EC2 Windows instance, locate the VMware Workstation virtual machine files created during the conversion (the *.vmx and the *.vmdk file).
  4. You will need to transfer the VMware Workstation virtual machine files to a location accessible to your destination environment.  You have several options to transfer the files:
    • First, upload the files to a local FTP server using an FTP client.
    • Second, upload the files to an Amazon S3 server and download them to a location accessible to your environment.
    • Upload the files from the Amazon EC2 Windows instance to an Amazon S3 server and use Amazon AWS Import/Export to retrieve the data on a physical storage device.
    • Use a third-party site like Box or DropBox to move the files.
  5.  Start Nutanix image configuration upload and conversion task to import the VMDK files into the AHV:
    1. On the PRISM main page, select Image Configuration in the task icon pull-down list of the main menu.
    2. To upload an image file to the cluster, click the Upload Image button.
      1. Name: Enter the Name of the servers
      2. Annotation (optional): Enter a description for the image.
      3. Image Type: Select the image type Disk. 
      4. Storage Container: Select the storage container
      5. Image Source: Do one of the following:
        1. Click the Upload a file radio button to upload a file from your workstation.  Next, click the Choose File button and select the VMDK file to upload from the file search window.
      6. When all the fields are correct, click the Save button.
      7. Wait for the disk to finish uploading before moving to step 6.
  6. Create a New guest VM with the disk you just uploaded
    1. In the VM dashboard, click the Create VM button.
    2. Do the following in the indicated fields:
      1. Name: Enter a name for the VM.
      2. Description (optional)
      3. vCPU(s): Enter the number of virtual CPUs to allocate to this VM.
      4. Number of Cores per vCPU: Enter the number of cores assigned to each virtual CPU.
      5. Memory: Enter the amount of memory (in MiBs) to allocate to this VM.
    3.  Click the Add New Disk button to attach a disk to the VM.
      1. Type: Select the type of storage device, DISK, from the pull-down list.
        • Select Clone from Image Service.  This will convert the disk that you have imported into an AHV the disk.
        • Bus Type: Select SCSI.
        • Image: Select the idea you created using the image service feature.
        • Storage Container: Select the storage container to use.
        • Size: Leave this blank.  It will automatically size the disk for your VM.
      2. When complete, click the Add button to attach the disk to the VM and return to the Create VM dialog box.
    4. Click the Save button to create the VM and close the Create VM dialog box.

The new VM appears in the VM table view.
You can start using the Windows instance after completing the image configuration conversion task.