> Essential > Virtualization > Information for All Virtualized Platforms > Cross-Hypervisor Restores (VM Conversion)

Converting to VMware

When you restore a virtual machine (VM) from a backup, you can restore the VM as a VMware VM.

Source Hypervisors

You can convert VMs to VMware from the following hypervisors:

  • Amazon streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies

  • Azure Resource Manager streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies

  • Google Cloud Platform streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies

  • Hyper-V streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies

  • Nutanix AHV streaming backups or IntelliSnap backup copies

Note

  • You cannot perform conversions from IntelliSnap snap copies.

  • You cannot convert encrypted Azure disks to VMware.

  • For Azure Resource Manager and Hyper-V, you cannot convert Ubuntu 16.x VMs or Ubuntu 18.x VMs to VMware.

  • For Google Cloud Platform, you cannot convert Ubuntu VMs or Debian VMs to VMware.

Before You Begin

  • For Amazon EC2 to VMware conversions, review additional information. For more information, see Required Information for Converting from Amazon to VMware.

  • Make the following changes on source VMs before performing backups that you use for conversions:

    • For Linux VMs, add required SCSI drivers and recompile the initrd file.

      If you do not perform this step for Linux VMs, the converted VMs fail to power on. To enable the VMs to power on, use a live recovery image of the Linux operating system to access the terminal, and then perform this step on the converted VMs.

    • Configure source VMs to use DHCP instead of using static IP addresses. The conversion process does not restore static IP addresses.

  • Configure a VMware hypervisor. For more information, see Configuring Backups for VMware VMs.

  • Install drivers on VMs running CentOS or RHEL. For more information, see Preparing UNIX VMs for Conversion to VMware.

    Note

    You do not need to install drivers on VMs running Windows.

  • As a best practice, configure the server plan that is used for backups to create a backup copy using on-premises storage, and use the backup copy as the source for conversion.

  • When restoring an Azure virtual machine, do the following:

    • For Windows computers: enable the pagefile on the C: drive of the source VM. This will prevent you from receiving an error message when you reboot the destination VM.

    • For Linux computers : Ensure that the fstab entry of the source disk should be based on disk UUID and not disk name. If it is not based on disk UUID, then the restored VM will not boot up.

  • For information about the restore options for the VMware destination, see Options for Conversion to VMware.

Procedure

  1. From the navigation pane, go to Protect > Virtualization.

    The Virtual machines page appears.

  2. Click the VM groups tab.

    The VM group page appears. The VM groups area displays summary information for any existing VM groups.

  3. In the VM groups area, select Restore for the VM group that contains the virtual machine.

  4. In the Select restore type page, select Full virtual machine to restore one or more full virtual machines.

  5. In the Restore page, expand the tree on the left and select the objects to be restored on the right. Select an item or click on an entry in the Name column to browse within an item.

    In the top 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: Only display data for the most recent backups.

    • Show backups as of a specific date: Only display data up to the date you specify.

    • Show backups for a date range: Only display data within the data range you specify.

  6. Click Restore.

    The Restore options dialog box appears.

  7. Enter the restore options for the VMware VMs.

  8. Click Next after entering values for the first page.

  9. Click Submit to run the restore job.

Result

  • If the wrong operating system was selected, you might not be able to start the converted VM.

  • For converted Windows VMs, disks might be offline. You can bring the disks online manually.

  • VMware tools are not installed on the converted VM, and are required to access some services (such as the VMCI driver, which enables high-speed communication between VMs on the same host and reduces latency). Use the vSphere client to install VMware tools on the converted VM.

  • The conversion process does not restore static IP addresses.

What to Do Next

You may need to update disk assignments manually for restored virtual machines that have UEFI boot and multiple type of controllers.

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