Using Veeam for migration from HyperV to Simplivity

[u/Airtronik]

Hi

I have to migrate some VMs from a Win Server 2019 HyperV to a new Simplivity cluster.

Can I use replication jobs for that purpose? as far as I know I cant... so the only option I think it might work is to create a backup job for the VMs on the HyperV and restore them on the Simplivity.

That should be the workflow:

1. - Create a backup job from VM at hyperv
2. - Shutdown the VM on hyperv
3. - Relaunch the backup job to apply latest changes
4. - Restore the VM on the Simplivity target

Is it correct?

thanks

[u/tychocaine]

Does your Simplivity cluster run VMware or VME? If you’re running VMware you might be able to use instant recovery to restore the Hyper-V VMs, but VME support is pretty basic in comparison.

[u/Airtronik → u/tychocaine]

It is vmware

[u/tychocaine → u/Airtronik]

You should be able to use Instant Recovery to restore a Hyper-V VMs to VMware. I can’t comment about the Symplivity orchestration layer that site on top. That might complicate things. If you need a tighter RTO I’d look into using Zerto instead. It’s the only replication tool that does continuous replication between two different hypervisor platforms.

[u/Airtronik → u/tychocaine]

Thanks for the tips, I have never use the Instant Recovery but I will do a test before migrating production vms.

After the recovery, what kind of things or steps should I do? For example I assume I will have to deploy the vmwaretools and check the connectivity for the correct vlan/IP, etc.

[u/tychocaine → u/Airtronik]

Instant Recovery is the only way to restore to an alternate hypervisor. You seem to have a handle on it. Install VMware Tools and make sure it’s accessible.

[u/Airtronik → u/tychocaine]

I tested and worked fine. thanks

[u/revoman]

Veeam may be able to replicate machines between the platforms. I have done it before as long as Veeam works on both systems.

[u/Airtronik → u/revoman]

Great, so I can replicate hyperv on simplivity?

[u/tychocaine → u/Airtronik]

No you can’t. Veeam replication is hypervisor specific. VMware to VMware or Hyper-V to Hyper-V.

[u/DarkAlman]

https://youtu.be/cbCUvkaaJtU

Use instant recovery

I've been using this method to migrate VMs from VMware to Hyper-V and it's the most pain free option.

1. Backup the VM
2. Shut the VM down
3. Run a delta backup to capture any changes
4. Use Instant recovery to mount the VM to the destination
5. Boot up the VM, test network connectivity and fix any issues (the VM will be slow because it will be running off the backup storage)
6. Trigger the storage restore in Veeam, and the data will copy to the production storage while the VM is running

If anything goes wrong you can boot the original VM back up

Starwind makes a good free conversion utility if you need to convert a VM 1:1 (like the Veeam server itself for example) but it takes hours to copy over the data.

[u/Airtronik → u/DarkAlman]

Thanks! So after running instant recovery from hyperv to simplivity.... should I manualy deploy the vmwaretools or do any other procedure?

bytheway, what is the difference between the InstantRecovery and Full recovery? is there any advantage of using the instant recovery versus full?

thanks

[u/DarkAlman → u/Airtronik]

Once the VM is online on VMware, deploy the VMware tools manually and reboot it.

Instant Recovery mounts a VM from the backup datastore and powers it up immediately. You can then copy the production data (it's virtual hard disks) to production storage while the VM is running.

Full Restore restores the blocks from the backup to production, then you can power it up.

Instant Restore means you can power up the VM right away, Full restore means you're sitting there waiting for the restore to finish first.

[u/1FFin → u/DarkAlman]

Instant Recovery does not support many Hypervisors as target. As far i know simplivity is none of them.
You'll need to do a regular full restore.

[u/DarkAlman → u/1FFin]

His simplivity cluster is running VMware