Converting from Azure to Amazon

When restoring an Azure virtual machine from a 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 perform VM conversions from streaming backups, from secondary copies, or from IntelliSnap backup copies. You cannot perform a conversion from a Snap copy.

You can use direct read backups for VM conversion.

Before You Begin

Create an Amazon hypervisor.
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 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.
You can use any VSA proxy to perform the conversion, either running on an Amazon instance or externally with connectivity into the Amazon account. Use either of the following methods:
- 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 must install Xen drivers on Linux guest VMs before performing a backup of an Azure VM that is used as the source for conversion or replication. Installing Xen drivers on Linux guest VMs 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 that are converted using the import method cannot have disks that are 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 can use BIOS or UEFI. When you convert a VM that uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) or Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) boot methods, see Converting from VMware or Hyper-V to Amazon.

Considerations and Limitations

For information about Amazon considerations and limitations, see the following pages:
RAID partitioned volumes are not supported for conversion and import into Amazon.

Import of Linux VMs with GUID Partition table (GPT) partitioned boot volumes is not supported.

For more information about Amazon's supported volume types and file systems, on the "VM Import/Export Requirements" page in AWS documentation, see Volume types and file systems.

Operating System Requirements

The Commvault software supports the following Azure VM operating systems for restoring Azure backups to Amazon instances:

Windows 2012 R2
Windows 2016
Windows 2019
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6
CentOS-based 7.5

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

HotAdd Requirements

To use the HotAdd restore process, review the requirements in VM Conversion from VMware or Hyper-V to Amazon EC2. When configuring HotAdd, do the following:

Select a proxy running in Amazon.
From the Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog box, click Configure, and then enter the IAM role and key pair for the source VM.
You do not need an Amazon bucket because the restore writes to volumes on the VSA proxy.

Commvault requires the guest credentials to log on to the converted virtual machine, and inject the relevant network and storage drivers for the destination cloud platform. For more information about the required drivers, see VM Conversion from VMware or Hyper-V to Amazon EC2.

Procedure

From the CommCell Console, go to Client Computers > virtualization_client > Virtual Server > instance > backup_set.
Right-click the subclient that contains the backup for the Azure virtual machine to convert, and then select Browse and Restore.

The Browse and Restore Options dialog box appears.
Select Full Virtual Machine.
From the Restore as list beside Full Virtual Machine, select Amazon.
Click View Content.

A Client tab shows the contents of the most recent backup for the subclient.
In the left pane, select a virtual machine.

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

The Restore Options for All Selected Items dialog box appears.

Enter the values for the conversion:

Option	Steps
Virtualization Client	From this list, select the Amazon virtualization client that was created with appropriate access keys for the AWS account. The associated Access Key ID appears below this option.
Proxy Client	Select the proxy client. By default, the proxy that was used for this backup is selected, but you can select a different proxy. For HotAdd restores, select a proxy running in Amazon.
Change Instance display name to	Enter a new name for the destination instance. You cannot submit a restore job that contains multiple instances with the same name. If you specify the same name as an existing instance and on the Restore Options page, select the Unconditionally overwrite Instance with the same name, then 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.
Availability Zone	From this list, select the availability zone where you want to import the instance. Availability zones are provided through your Amazon account.
Amazon Cloud Options	Click Configure to specify Amazon Cloud options: Availability Zone: Select the availability zone where the instance is imported. Availability zones are provided through your Amazon account. AMI Selection: (Optional) Commvault automatically selects an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that matches the operating system, platform, and the virtualization type. To specify a set of AMI IDs for automatic selection, see Enabling Specific AMI IDs for Restores and Replication. Instance Type: Select an instance type that provides the available CPU cores and memory for the instance. If you choose Auto Select (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 Select to automatically detect the operating system of the source VM. Instance Settings: For Hot-Add restores, from the IAM Role list, select a role. From the Key Pair list, select the associated key pair. Enable Termination protection: To protect the restore from being deleted, select this option. 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: (Applies 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, the Commvault software creates and attaches the network interface with that IP. If you leave the Private IP field blank, the Commvault creates a new network interface that will match with the chosen VPC, and then attaches it. Network: (Applies only to VPC) For a VPC network, select a subnet and network interface for the secondary network. Private IP: (Applies 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, the Commvault software creates and attaches the network interface with that IP. If you leave the Private IP field blank, the Commvault software creates a new network interface that will match with the chosen VPC, and then attaches it. Security Groups: Select a security group for the specified network.
Power ON Instance after restore	To power on the converted instance automatically after it is created in Amazon, select this option.
Unconditionally overwrite Instance with the same name	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.

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.