Beginner’s Guide to Cross-Platform Migration from VMware Virtual Machines

After VMware changed its product sales model, resulting in increased user costs, migration from VMware to other platforms has become inevitable. Many enterprises are exploring “how to migrate from VMware to other platforms” and “what should be considered when migrating from VMware to other platforms?” This involves not only technical challenges but also business continuity and data security.

This guide provides a comprehensive VMware migration operation manual to help you understand available VMware migration tools and ensure a smooth and efficient migration process.

Migration is not simply “copy-paste”; it’s a systematic engineering project involving computing, storage, networking, security, and other aspects that require careful planning and implementation based on specific scenarios. Understanding different migration scenarios and available tools is the first step to successful migration.

VMware Migration Scenarios and Methods

There are various methods for migrating VMware virtual machines, and choosing the most appropriate solution depends on your business requirements, target environment, and network conditions.

Common migration scenarios include:

• Same Data Center Migration: Within the same data center, VMware vMotion technology enables online migration without downtime. This requires shared storage and network connectivity between source and target hosts.
• VMware to Cloud Migration: Enterprises migrate on-premises VMware virtual machines to public clouds or self-built private cloud platforms to leverage cloud computing’s elasticity, cost advantages, and enhanced system controllability. Such migrations typically require migration tools for format conversion, driver adaptation, and network adjustments.
• Heterogeneous Virtualization Migration: Refers to migration from VMware to other virtualization platforms like Hyper-V or KVM. This involves conversion and compatibility verification of virtual machine disk formats, drivers, and network adapters.

When performing VMware to ZStack migration, special attention should be paid to “VMware to cloud migration” and “heterogeneous virtualization migration” scenarios as they typically involve different architectures and technology stacks.

Key Considerations for Cross-Platform Migration

Successful cross-platform migration requires detailed planning and deep understanding of potential challenges:

• Compatibility Challenges: Heterogeneous platforms may have differences in virtual machine disk formats, drivers, and network configurations that require conversion and adaptation. For example, CPU architectures between source and target hosts must be similar, and virtual machine network configurations must be identical.
• Data Integrity and Security: Ensuring no data loss or corruption during migration is paramount. Before any migration operation, complete backups of virtual machines must be performed to prevent data loss. Data transmission should be encrypted (e.g., SSL encryption) to enhance security and ensure data integrity.
• Business Downtime: Many migration methods require virtual machine downtime. For example, cold migration requires shutting down the virtual machine. While some advanced tools support online live migration, downtime for final business switching (typically 5-10 minutes) must still be allocated for incremental transfer, target startup, application configuration checks, and system verification.
• Network Connectivity: Ensuring network connectivity between the source VMware environment and target environment is crucial. Port connectivity testing and firewall/port configuration are required. For example, VMware agentless connectors need connectivity to vCenter’s port 443 (default) and port 902 (default) on the ESXi host of the virtual machine being migrated.

VMware to ZStack Solution: Simplifying the Migration Journey

Facing complex VMware to ZStack migration requirements, choosing a reliable and efficient solution is critical. ZStack provides a series of VMware to ZStack solutions designed to help enterprises achieve smooth, seamless migration.

ZStack’s solutions cover multiple migration paths including server virtualization, private cloud, and hyper-convergence, having successfully helped over 600 enterprise customers significantly reduce costs. The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform is one of the key products, offering an interface experience consistent with VMware virtualization products. ZStack ZSphere shares core engines with ZStack Cloud, featuring high autonomy, stability, performance, and security to ensure unified intelligent operations and smooth V2V migration while maintaining business security and reliability.

ZStack’s migration capabilities include:

• Agentless Migration Support: ZStack ZSphere and related solutions support agentless mode, eliminating the need to install agents on source virtual machines, reducing intrusiveness to production systems and improving migration efficiency.
• Automation and Efficiency: Migration tools can automatically create and orchestrate cloud-side storage and host resources, significantly improving migration efficiency. For example, Alibaba Cloud’s SMC service provides OVA template files for deploying VMware agentless connectors to simplify deployment.
• Block-Level Full/Incremental Replication: Supports block-level full and incremental data replication to ensure source host uptime and business continuity during migration.
• Heterogeneous Driver Intelligent Adaptation: In cross-platform migration scenarios, ZStack solutions automatically adapt target-side drivers without manual intervention, greatly simplifying the process.

Important Migration Considerations and Preparation

Before executing VMware to ZStack migration, thorough preparation can significantly improve success rates:

1. Data Backup: This is the most important prerequisite. Before any migration operation, perform complete backups of virtual machines to prevent data loss. Backups can be saved as images, snapshots, or to storage devices separate from instances.
2. Environment Requirement Checks: Different OVA templates have specific requirements for VMware agentless connector configuration, vCenter deployment, single ESXi environment deployment, and the ESXi/hardware versions of virtual machines being migrated.
3. Role Permission Configuration: Ensure the vCenter or ESXi user account has necessary permissions for migration, including Datastore, Host, and Virtual machine permissions.
4. Target Environment Adaptation: If migrating to purchased ECS instances, ensure target instance storage, OS, and other configurations match the source server. The number of target data disks should be ≥ source data disks, and capacity should be ≥ actual used capacity of source disks.
5. Network Configuration and Connectivity: Ensure VMware agentless connectors can connect to vCenter/ESXi ports (e.g., 443 and 902) and the ESXi host of the virtual machine being migrated. Configure network environments to meet requirements for transmission speed limits and compression rates.
6. Time Synchronization: Time on VMware agentless connectors must be accurate; otherwise, migration source import may fail.
7. Avoid Source VM Operations: During migration client operation, avoid powering off, restarting, creating, or deleting snapshots of source virtual machines to prevent migration failures.
8. Continuous Monitoring and Testing: Monitor performance of source and target hosts during migration. After completion, conduct comprehensive testing to ensure virtual machines operate normally in the new environment, including data verification, application service auto-start, and IP address changes.

ZStack: Empowering Every Enterprise with Its Own Cloud

ZStack, as a leading cloud infrastructure software provider, is committed to empowering every enterprise with its own cloud. ZStack’s product line includes not only the industry-leading ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform, but also ZStack Cloud platform, ZStack HCI, ZStack Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and ZStack AIOS among other innovative products.

ZStack products excel in performance, stability, and security:

• High Autonomy: From underlying code to product design, ZStack achieves nearly 100% self-developed code rate and is compatible with four major CPU+GPU chip architectures and eight chip types.
• High Stability: Features powerful self-healing mechanisms including management service HA, network HA, and virtual machine HA to ensure automatic recovery from failures and maintain high availability.
• High Performance: Comprehensive optimization in computing, storage, and networking.
• High Security: Constructs a four-level security framework through distributed firewalls, security groups, virtualization antivirus protection, commercial data encryption, and identity authentication to ensure user operations and business continuity.
• High Unification: Enables unified IT resource management, supports diverse devices, and fully utilizes existing infrastructure to protect investments.
• High Intelligence: Provides intelligent components including operation alerts, virtual resource topology, enhanced SNMP management, and smart script libraries to reduce business failure rates and improve operational efficiency.

ZStack has gained widespread market recognition, being included in the “Leader” quadrant of CCID (China Center for Information Industry Development) Consulting’s “2024 China Virtualization Market Research Report” and ranking first among independent cloud vendors in IDC’s “2024H2/2024 China Cloud System Software Overview and Analysis” report. ZStack services cover over 30 countries and regions globally with more than 4,000 customers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: What is VMware to ZStack migration?

A1: VMware to ZStack migration refers to transferring VMware virtual machines from their original VMware virtualization environment (e.g., vCenter or ESXi) to different computing platforms, such as public clouds (e.g., Alibaba Cloud) or other virtualization platforms (e.g., ZStack ZSphere or Hyper-V), to achieve infrastructure flexibility and resource optimization.

Q2: What are the main challenges of VMware to ZStack migration?

A2: Main challenges include compatibility between source and target environments (e.g., disk formats, driver adaptation, network configuration), data integrity assurance, business downtime management, and ensuring data security during migration (e.g., encrypted transmission). Effective migration tools and meticulous planning can significantly reduce these risks.

Q3: How does ZStack’s VMware to ZStack solution simplify cross-platform migration?

A3: ZStack’s VMware to ZStack solutions simplify migration processes through features like agentless migration support, automated migration tools, block-level full/incremental replication, and intelligent heterogeneous driver adaptation. The ZStack ZSphere virtualization platform provides a VMware-consistent user experience, ensuring smooth post-migration operations and business continuity.

Q4: How is data security ensured during VMware to ZStack migration?

A4: Key measures for ensuring data security include performing complete backups of all virtual machines before migration, ensuring encrypted data transmission (e.g., SSL encryption), and avoiding any operations on source virtual machines during migration client operation to prevent data loss or corruption.

Q5: How long does VMware to ZStack migration typically take?

A5: Migration time depends on multiple factors including source data volume, network bandwidth, chosen migration method (e.g., online live migration or cold migration), and migration tool efficiency. While automation tools and incremental synchronization can significantly reduce business interruption time, sufficient manual operation time must still be allocated for final business switching and verification.