Converting to Azure from Nutanix AHV

When restoring a virtual machine from a backup for Nutanix AHV, you can convert the VM to Azure Resource Manager.

This feature can be used to migrate workloads to the Azure cloud, or to recover VMs in Azure if the Nutanix AHV deployment is unavailable.

This option is available from the Command Center or from the CommCell Console.

You can perform VM conversions from streaming backups, from secondary copies, or from IntelliSnap backup copies. You cannot perform a conversion from a Snap copy.

Before You Begin

Add a hypervisor for Azure.
Before performing backups of source VMs:
- Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) must be enabled on the source VM and the user performing the conversion should be able to log in to the VM.
- If the source VM has a firewall configured, disable the firewall before performing the backup that is used for conversion.
- To power on Linux VMs after conversion, integration services must be enabled on the source VMs.
- For Windows VMs, to enable disks to be brought online as part of the conversion, enable SAN policy for the source VM. You can use this workaround for disks that are not shared.
  1. Open a command line or PowerShell session locally on the VM.
  2. Open the disk partition tool:
```
  C:> diskpart
```
  3. Verify that the SAN policy is set to Offline Shared:
```
  DISKPART> SAN
  SAN Policy : Offline Shared
```
  4. Change the policy to OnlineAll:
```
  DISKPART> SAN POLICY=OnlineAll
```
Azure Standard or Premium general-purpose storage accounts are required.
To enable deployment in Azure Resource Manager, define one or more resource groups for the application that is associated with the Azure virtualization client.
The operating system for the destination VM must be an operating system that is supported for Azure.
Before you replicate or convert Red Hat Linux VMs to Azure, add required Hyper-V drivers to the VMs and perform a new backup of the VMs. For more information, see Linux VMs do not boot or are unreachable after conversion or replication to Azure.

Commvault Considerations

If the Auto option is selected and the disk operating system type cannot be determined from the configuration file, the job fails. Resubmit the job and select the correct OS during the restore.
The Power on VMs after restore option is selected by default.
If a Nutanix AHV source VM has multiple disks, and the operating system disk is not marked, the conversion marks the first disk as the operating system disk. The first disk is identified based on the disk type in the following order of preference: 1) IDE, 2) SCSI, 3) SATA.

In this situation, the conversion succeeds, and you can change the operating system disk as needed for the converted VM.

Azure VM Considerations

Note

Before you convert a VM from a non-Azure hypervisor using a "restore as" operation or a Live Sync operation, verify that the source VM meets the requirements for non-endorsed distributions. This verification is important because Linux VMs that are based on an endorsed distribution of Azure have the prerequisites that enable them to run on Azure, but VMs that originate from other hypervisors might not. For more information, see Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions.

The VM name can contain only alphanumeric characters and the '-' character. The name cannot contain any Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) characters.
The RAM and disk specification for the source VM must match the format of the Azure destination VM. For example, if the source VM RAM is less than 1.75 GB, only two disks will be uploaded to Azure if Auto is selected as the VM size for the conversion, because of Azure restrictions.

Procedure

From the navigation pane, go to Solutions > Virtualization.

The Hypervisors tab appears.
On the Hypervisors tab, click the hypervisor for the source VMs.

The hypervisor details page appears. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.
In the VM groups area, click Restore for the VM group that contains the virtual machine.

The Select restore type page appears.
To restore one or more full virtual machines, select Full virtual machine.
In the Restore page, expand the tree on the left and select the objects to restore on the right. Select an item or click on an entry in the Name column to browse within an item.

In the upper-right corner of the page, a "Showing" message indicates what backup data is being displayed. You can click the down arrow beside this message and select any of the following options:
- Show latest backups: Display data only for the most recent backups.
- Show backups as of a specific date: Display data only up to the date you specify.
- Show backups for a date range: Display data only within the data range you specify.
The Restore options dialog box appears.
Specify the requested information:
1. From the Restore as list, select Azure Resource Manager.
2. From the Azure subscription list, select an Azure hypervisor.
3. Optional: To change the proxy from the default value (which is the preferred VSA proxy for the hypervisor that is used for the restore), select a proxy from the Access node list.
4. To start the VM automatically, select Power on VMs after restore.
5. To delete an existing virtual machine and replace it with the restored VM, select Overwrite VMs if they already exist.
6. If you are restoring multiple VMs, click the All VMs tab in the lower-left area of the page to specify configuration values for all VMs that you are restoring, or the name of each VM to specify values individually. Specify the following values:
  - Optional: When restoring multiple VMs, select Prefix or Suffix and enter a string to append to the original display name to create new destination VM names.
  - Optional: To change the name of an individual VM, enter the new display name in the VM display name to box.
  - To specify a resource group for the restore VM, in the Resource group box, enter a name.
  - For Storage account, enter the storage account for a virtual machine or disk.
    
    You can specify any storage account in the same region as the selected resource group.
  - For VM size, select a size specification for the restored virtual machine.
  - For Network interface, select a network connection for the restored VM, or leave the default value of Auto Select.
  - If a public IP address is not required on restored VMs, clear the Create Public IP check box.
  - For Security Group, specify a network security group for the restored VM or leave the default value of Auto Select.
  - To create the destination VM as a managed VM in Azure, select the Restore as a managed VM check box.
    
    When you select this check box, the restore operation stages virtual machine disks in the specified storage account, and then converts them to managed disks and attaches the disks to the restored virtual machine.
Click Submit to run the restore job.

Results

If the source VM had dynamic disks that use simple disk spanning, RAID, striped, or mirrored layouts, after VM conversion, the disks 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. Import the entire disk group in one operation rather than performing a partial import.