Converting from VMware to Azure

When restoring a VMware virtual machine from backup, the virtual machine can be restored as an Azure VM in the Azure management portal.

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

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.

Note

A static IP will not be replicated to the destination VM.

Before You Begin

Create a Microsoft Azure client.
Before performing backups of source VMs, enable Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) on the source VM.
Before performing backups of source VMs, configure the source VMs to use DHCP instead of static IP addresses. The conversion process does not restore static IP addresses.
For Windows VMs, to enable disks to be brought online as part of the conversion, enable SAN policy for the source VM. For more information, see Enabling Disks to Be Brought Online as Part of a Conversion.
The user who performs the conversion must be able to log on to the VM.
Azure Standard or Premium general-purpose storage accounts are required for VM conversion to Azure.
To enable deployment in Azure Resource Manager, define one or more resource groups for the application associated with the Azure virtualization client.
The operating system for the destination VM must be an operating system that is supported for Azure. For more information, see the following:
- Windows: Microsoft server software support for Azure virtual machines
- Linux: Endorsed Linux distributions on 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.
Before you convert a VMware VM to an Azure Resource Manager VM, you must install the Azure VM agent in order for the Azure VM to boot. For more information, see "Install the Azure Windows VM Agent" in Azure Windows VM Agent overview.
Static network connections are not configured as part of conversion. If a virtual machine is configured to use a static IP address, change the network configuration to use DHCP before performing the backup.
To access the Serial Console in the Azure portal on Linux, perform the steps found on the page How to set up serial console boot for headless boot on the source VM prior to backup.

Commvault Requirements

Source virtual machines must be from vCenter Server 5.5 or a more recent version.
If the AUTO option is selected and the disk operating system type cannot be determined from the configuration file, the job will fail. The job can be resubmitted by selecting the proper OS on the Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog.
The Create and Power ON Virtual Machine option is selected by default. If this option is not selected when the VM is restored, only the operating system disk is registered, and any remaining disks are uploaded to the Azure storage account. In this case, VHDs must be created manually through the Azure management portal, using the Create VHD option on the Disk tab:
1. For each disk, browse to the storage location and open the disk from which the VHD is to be created. Opening the disk registers it as a VHD, so that it can be attached to a new or existing VM.
2. Select the VM to which the VHD is to be attached, and attach one or more registered VHDs from the storage location.

Azure VM Requirements

Before you convert a VM from a non-Azure hypervisor using a "restore as" 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.
All necessary Windows drivers are pre-installed. For more information about preparing a Windows virtual hard disk, see Prepare a Windows VM to upload to Azure.
The VM name can only contain alphanumeric characters or the '-' character; the name cannot contain any Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) characters.
The RAM and disk specification for the source VM should 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

To access a backup of a VMware or Hyper-V virtual machine and create an Azure virtual machine:

From the CommCell Console, go to Client Computers > virtualization_client > Virtual Server > VMware > backup_set.
Right-click the subclient that contains the backup for the VMware virtual machine to convert, and then select Browse and Restore.
In the Browse and Restore Options dialog box, select Full Virtual Machine.
From the Restore as list under Full Virtual Machine, select one of the following options:
- Azure Classic
- Azure Resource Manager
Click View Content.

A Client tab shows the contents of the most recent backup for the subclient.
Select a virtual machine in the left pane. The configuration and VMDK files for the selected virtual machine are displayed in the right pane.
Click Recover All Selected at the bottom of the window.

In the Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog box, select values for the conversion:

Options	Steps
Azure Subscription	Select the virtualization client created for Azure.
Destination client	Select a destination client to act as a staging machine. Disk and configuration files for the Azure virtual machine are copied to the job results folder on the staging machine, then uploaded to Azure.
VM and Disk	The VM and Disk column displays the name of the virtual machine and lists virtual machine disks.
Change VM display name to	To avoid overwriting an existing virtual machine with the same name on the Azure management portal, click in the first row of the Change VM display name to column and enter a new name.
Resource Group (only for Azure Resource Manager)	Select the resource group in which the converted virtual machine should be created.
Region/Storage Accounts	Select the region for the restored VM. Then select an Azure Standard or Premium general-purpose storage account. You can select a different storage account for each virtual machine and disk. The storage accounts listed are only those associated with the selected region for the restored VM.
Settings (only for Azure Resource Manager)	After selecting the Resource Group, select one or more VMs and click Configure to display the Azure Virtual Machine Configuration dialog box. Any changes you make on this dialog box are applied to all of the selected VMs. The following information is displayed: VM Display Name (if a single VM was selected) - Displays the name of the destination VM. You cannot change the value on this dialog box. Edit Destination VM Name (if multiple VMs were selected) - Select Prefix or Suffix and enter a string that should be appended to all destination VM names. Resource Group - Displays the selected resource group. You cannot change the value on this dialog box. Region/Storage Account: Select the region for the restored VM. Then select an Azure Standard or Premium general-purpose storage account. You can select a different storage account for each virtual machine and disk. The storage accounts listed are only those associated with the selected region for the restored VM. VM size - Select a VM size from the list. The VM sizes in the list are those that are available for the resource group you selected. Restore as Managed VM - To restore virtual machines as managed virtual machines, select this check box. When you select this option, the restore operation creates virtual machine disks in the specified storage account, and then converts them to managed disks and attaches the disks to the restored virtual machine. Operating System - Match the operating system of the source VM. If necessary, you can select the AUTO option to automatically detect the operating system of the source VM. The operating system for the destination VM must be an operating system that is supported for Azure. Network Interface - Select one of the available network interfaces for the resource group from the list. If you select Not Connected, virtual machines are restored with network interfaces in disconnected state.
Create and Power ON Virtual Machine	Select this option to power on the virtual machine in the Azure management portal after uploading disks and completing the conversion. This option is selected by default.
Unconditionally overwrite VM and VHDs in destination path	If a virtual machine with the same name exists on the Azure management portal, select this option to overwrite the existing virtual machine.

Click OK.

Result

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. You need to import the entire disk group in one operation rather than performing a partial import.