Converting from VMware or Hyper-V to Amazon

When restoring a VMware or Hyper-V virtual machine from backup, you can restore the virtual machine as an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instance or as an Amazon Web Services (AWS) instance that is part of a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC).

You can use this feature to migrate virtual machines to the Amazon cloud.

You can perform conversions from a streaming backup, backup copy, or auxiliary copy.

Before You Begin

• The VSA proxy machine must be able to connect to ec2.amazonaws.com. To route communications through an HTTP or HTTPS proxy, provide proxy information in the CommServe Control Panel, on the HTTP Proxy tab of the Internet Options dialog box. To use an HTTPS proxy, you must provide authentication details.

• Create an Amazon virtualization client. When converting a virtual machine to Amazon, you must select the appropriate Amazon virtualization client to enable access to the AWS account.

• By default, AWS admin users have all permissions required for VM conversion. For non-admin users, you must set required permissions in the AWS user policy.

• For cross-hypervisor restores or live sync replication from VMware to Amazon, you must use a VSA proxy that runs on Windows.

• To perform the conversion, you can use a VSA proxy running on an Amazon instance or on an external machine that can connect to the Amazon account.

  • Using an Amazon proxy provides faster performance. By using a VSA proxy running on an Amazon instance, the restore operation can write directly to Elastic Block Storage (EBS) and inject Amazon drivers that are required for destination instances. You must provide credentials for the guest VM. The restore is performed using the HotAdd method.

    You can install Xen drivers on Linux guest VMs before performing a backup of a VMware VM that is used as the source for conversion or replication. This enables the required drivers to be in place when the Amazon instances are created, so that the Amazon instance can be started and users can access the instance.

  • Using an external proxy avoids the cost associated with running an Amazon instance. With an external proxy, the restore is performed using the Import method.

    VMs converted using the Import method cannot have disks larger than 2 TB.

• On any VM that you want to import into an Amazon EC2 instance, you might need up to 2 GB of available disk space in the OS disk for installing drivers and other software.

• The source VM must start using BIOS. If you convert a VM that uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) boot methods, the resulting Amazon instance cannot be started.

Considerations and Limitations

• For Hyper-V VM differential disks or checkpoints (files with .avhd or .avhdx extensions) are excluded from the upload to Amazon.

• See the following pages for information about Amazon considerations and limitations:

  • Importing a VM as an Image Using VM Import/Export:

  • Prerequisites

  • Limitations

Operating System Requirements

For information about supported virtual machine operating systems, on the "VM Import/Export Requirements" page in AWS documentation, see Operating Systems.

You cannot restore to an Amazon EC2 guest instance that uses a non-volatile memory express (NVMe) host controller. This restriction applies for full instance restores, conversion to an Amazon EC2 instance, and replication to an Amazon EC2 destination instance.

HotAdd Requirements

To use the HotAdd restore process, review the requirements in HotAdd Restores. When configuring live sync to use HotAdd:

• Select a proxy running in Amazon.

• From the Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog box, click Configure and enter guest credentials for the source VM.

• You do not need an Amazon bucket because the restore writes to volumes on the VSA proxy.

Procedure

To access a virtual machine backup and create an instance in Amazon:

1. From the CommCell Console, go to Client Computers > virtualization_client > Virtual Server > instance > backup_set.

2. Right-click the subclient that contains the backup for the VMware virtual machine to convert and select Browse and Restore.

3. In the Browse and Restore Options window, select Full Virtual Machine.

4. From the Restore as list next to Full Virtual Machine, select Amazon.

5. Click View Content.

   A Client tab shows the contents of the most recent backup for the subclient.

6. In the left pane, select a virtual machine.

   The configuration and VMDK files for the selected virtual machine are displayed in the right pane.

7. Click Recover All Selected.

8. In the Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog box, provide values for the conversion:

   Option	Steps
   Amazon Key	From this list, select the Amazon virtualization client that was created with appropriate access keys for the AWS account.
   Proxy Client	By default, the proxy that was used for the backup is selected. You can select a different proxy from the list. For HotAdd restores, select a proxy running in Amazon.
   Instance and Volume	The Instance and Volume column shows the name of the instance and lists instance volumes.
   Change Instance display name to	Enter a new name for the destination instance. If you specify the same name as an existing instance and select the Unconditionally overwrite Instance and disk files in destination path option, the existing instance will be replaced by the converted instance only if it is the only instance with that name in the Amazon account. If there are multiple instances with the same name, or if you do not select the overwrite option, the restore job goes pending. You cannot submit a restore job that contains multiple instances with the same name.
   Availability Zone	From this list, select the availability zone where the instance should be imported. Availability zones are provided through your Amazon account.
   Amazon Options	Click Configure to specify the following Amazon Cloud Options: VM Display Name: Displays the instance name. Availability Zone: Select the availability zone where the instance is imported. Availability zones are provided through your Amazon account. AMI Selection: (Optional) Select an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that can be used to specify the software configuration for the restored instance. Note that only Private AMIs are listed. If you want to restore using a Marketplace AMI, you will need to know the AMI ID and enter it here. Instance Type: From this list, select an instance type that provides the available CPU cores and memory for the instance. If you choose Auto (the default option), the instance type is selected based on the corresponding settings for the source VM. Operating System: Select Windows 64-bit, Windows 32-bit, or Linux 64-bit to match the operating system of the source VM. If necessary, you can select Auto to automatically detect the operating system of the source VM. Instance Settings: IAM Role: IAM (Identity and Access Management) role is an identity with specific permission policies that can be attached to any instance. Enable Termination Protection: Enabling this setting on an instance prevents that instance from accidentally being terminated. Guest Credentials: For HotAdd restores, enter the computer name, and then provide the user name and password for the local administrator account. Network Settings: Select an EC2 or a VPC network for the restored instances. Network: If you select an EC2 network, the second Network and Private IP fields are not displayed. For a VPC network, select a subnet and network interface for the primary network interface. Private IP: (Applicable only to VPC) If you select a new network interface as a VPC, specify a private IP that corresponds with the VPC. If you specify a specific Private IP, we will create and attach the network interface with that IP. If you leave the Private IP field blank, we will create a new network interface that will match with the chosen VPC, and then attach it. Network: (Applicable only to VPC) For a VPC network, select a subnet and network interface for the secondary network. Private IP: (Applicable only to VPC) If you select a new network interface as a VPC, specify a private IP that corresponds with the VPC. If you specify a specific Private IP, we will create and attach the network interface with that IP. If you leave the Private IP field blank, we will create a new network interface that will match with the chosen VPC, and then attach it. Security Groups: Select a security group for the specified network.
   Power ON Instance after restore	Select this option to power on the converted instance automatically after it is created in Amazon.
   Unconditionally overwrite Instance and disk files in destination path	If you are replacing an existing instance in Amazon, select this option to overwrite the existing instance and its volumes and replace them with the newly converted instance and volumes. The overwrite option succeeds only if there is a single instance in Amazon with the same name. If there are multiple instances with the same name, the job goes pending.

9. Click OK.

Result

After VM conversion, if a source VM had dynamic disks that use spanned or striped volumes, the volumes in the converted VM might be marked as Failed in Disk Management. You must bring these disks online manually using Disk Management. To bring the disks back online, perform an Import Foreign Disks operation on the guest VM for the disk group that contains failed disks. As noted in Description of Disk Groups in Windows Disk Management, import the entire disk group in one operation rather than performing a partial import.

RAID partitioned volumes are not supported for conversion and import into Amazon.

This consideration also applies to GPT-partitioned OS disks. (Operating system disks must use MBR-partitioned volumes.)