VM Conversion Using Commvault Hotadd

You can convert a VMware, Azure, or Hyper-V VM to an Amazon EC2 instance using a Commvault Access Node running in AWS.

Requirements

General Requirements

• For Windows VMs, the pagefile must be located on the C: drive.

• For Linux VMs, fstab entries must use UUID instead of the device name.

Disk Space Requirements

• 2 GB of available disk space on the OS disk for installing drivers and other software.

Requirements for Access Node Availability

The access node selected for the Commvault HotAdd method must be an Amazon EC2 instance in the same region as the destination instance.

The Access Node VM must be able to connect to ec2.amazonaws.com.

For more information, see Configuring a Firewall for an Access Node in the Cloud.

Configuring Source VMs for Commvault Hotadd

• For Windows guest VMs, you can copy drivers that are required for AWS instances to the access node that is used for conversion or replication operations. During the conversion or replication operation, drivers are automatically installed on the destination guest instances.

• For Windows VMs that use an access node that runs on Windows, Commvault attempts to copy required drivers automatically for conversion or replication to AWS instances, but automatic downloads might fail if a firewall is in place. If that occurs, you can copy required drivers to the access node that is used for the operation, and then retry the operation.

• For Linux guest VMs, you must copy the required drivers to the source VMs and then perform a new backup to use as the source for conversion or replication operations.

  To manually install drivers, see Preparing the Source VM.

  Note

  When converting the Linux source VM to AWS, you must use DHCP. If the source VMs use static IPs, use the import method instead. See, VM Conversion Using the Import Method.

HotAdd Restores

HotAdd restores for Amazon provide faster performance than traditional restores. By using an access node that is 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.

HotAdd restores are used for the following operations:

• Restores

• Live sync operations

Supported Guest Operating Systems

• Windows

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 (Standard, Web Server, Datacenter, Enterprise) (64-bit only)

    For information about source VMs that run on a version of Windows Server earlier than Windows Server 2012 R2, see Installing Drivers for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Earlier.

    Note

    For VM conversion or live sync replication of guest VMs that run Windows Server 2008 R2 and later versions, validation might fail for the converted instance in AWS. To resolve this issue, set the RealTimeIsUniversal registry key on the source VM as described in the AWS article Configure time settings for Windows Server 2008 and later, and then perform a new backup to use as the source for the conversion or replication.

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only) (Nano Server installation not supported)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2016 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 1709 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 1803 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2019 (Standard, Datacenter) (64-bit only)

  • Microsoft Windows 10 (Home, Professional, Enterprise, Education) (US English) (64-bit only)

• Linux

  • CentOS 6.x

  • CentOS 7.x

  • CentOS 8.x

  • Oracle Linux 6.x

  • Oracle Linux 7.x

  • Oracle Linux 8.x

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.x

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.x

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.x

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 and above

  • Ubuntu 14.04

  • Ubuntu 14.10

  • Ubuntu 15.04

  • Ubuntu 16.04

  • Ubuntu 16.10

  • Ubuntu 17.04

  • Ubuntu 18.04

  • Ubuntu 20.04

  • Ubuntu 21.10

  • Ubuntu 22.x

Supported Volume and File System Types

Windows

Instances with volumes that use Master Boot Record (MBR) partitioning. Volumes that use GUID Partition Table (GPT) partitioning are not supported.

Linux

Linux VMs that use one of the following for the root file system: ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs, JFS, or XFS.

Processes

This process converts a VMware, Azure, or Hyper-V VM to an Amazon EC2 instance using a Commvault Access Node running in AWS. The Access Node is running the Commvault Virtual Server Agent (VSA) package, which orchestrates the recovery.

Windows

1. Create an empty Amazon EBS volume for each source volume to migrate.

2. Attach Amazon EBS volumes to the Commvault Access node running in destination region and AWS account.

3. Restore data to EBS volumes.

   A snapshot of the EBS volumes is taken and retained as an integrity snapshot for reference during the next incremental replication.

4. Inject AWS components and drivers.

5. Detach volumes from the access node.

6. Create the Amazon instance from the EBS volumes.

7. Automatically log on to the instance to install PV drivers and EC2 configuration service.

Linux

1. Create empty EBS volumes.

   Up to 40 volumes can be attached to the VSA proxy during cross-hypervisor restores or live sync replication, occupying device slots xvdf - xvdz, or if the slots start with xvd, then xvdba - xvdbz, or a combination of both.

2. Attach EBS volumes to access node.

3. Restore data to EBS volumes.

   A snapshot of the EBS volumes is taken and retained as an integrity snapshot for reference during the next incremental replication.

4. Detach volumes from the access node.

5. Create the Amazon instance from the EBS volumes.

Note: A maximum of 21 volumes can be attached to the Commvault Access Node, during a HotAdd conversion, live sync replication.