How to Migrate from Hyper-V to VMware – Webinar Q&A Follow Up

Hello once again everyone! We put on a webinar about helping Hyper-V Administrators migrate to the VMware platform. I find that this is always something of a contentious topic no matter what direction the migration is being done. VMware to Hyper-V, or Hyper-V to VMware, it doesn’t matter. Everyone is quite passionate about their chosen hypervisor it seems. However, despite this, this is actually a very important skill set to have. Many IT Pros today are finding themselves in multi-hypervisor environments for a number of potential reasons…

1. A company makes an acquisition and inherits a different hypervisor
2. A company makes a policy decision to only support a specific vendor
3. An IT Pro changes jobs into such an environment
4. You’re a service provider supporting both platforms

Whatever the reason, there are many valid situations where you may have to make a migration like this. So with this webinar and another webinar we did some time ago, we now have resources for showing you how to move workloads from each platform to the other, so hopefully, these resources will be of great use to you!

With that in mind, as usual, we have included a recording of the webinar (below) and a link to the slidedeck used so that you have access to this information in case you need to reference it at a later time or in the event that you missed the scheduled webinar. Additionally, below the recording below we’ve included a list of the questions asked during the Q & A and their associated answers.

Let’s take a look.

Revisit the webinar: How to Migrate to VMware for Hyper-V Administrators

The Slide-deck

A copy of the slide deck can be retrieved HERE

The Q & A

Q: Is the essentials plus kit needed for vMotion?

A: Yes, essentials does not include vMotion

Q. Are there any considerations needed when migrating a version 1 Hyper-V VM to VMware vs. version 2?

A. From a migration perspective they are treated the same.

Q: Are there PowerShell cmdlets to be used with the VMware Converter Stand-Alone for bulk conversion jobs

A: No Official PowerCLI cmdlets exist for this, but VMware does have a SDK HERE that can be used to build different types of conversion jobs if desired, thought the jobs functionality in the converter utility is usually enough for most use cases. 

Q: What PowerCLI command would I use to get detailed event information for a VM like who powered it off?

A: Get-VIEvent is the cmdlet for you! run Get-Help Get-VIEvent -full for fully detailed syntax information

Q: Can you run a 2-node VSAN cluster?

A: As of vSphere 6.5 it is possible to run a 2 node configuration. More information on this type of setup can be found HERE.

Q: I’ve used the converter before and found that when i boot the newly created VM it gives me the OS Not found error….  what gives?

A: I’ve seen this before and the most common reason I’ve found is due to lack of storage drivers on the machine being converted, or the boot order is incorrect after the conversion job. in the advanced VM properties in vSphere you can force entry into the BIOS upon the next reboot to fix this. 

Q: Are there issues with duplicate IPs on the network after the conversion job?

A: You could potentially run into this if you allow both the source machine and the newly created VM to be powered on and on the same network segment at the same time. The converter provides options to power down the source machine and likewise power on the new VM if needed. Just something to plan for when doing conversions. 

Q: Are there recommendations for offline P2V software?

A: VMware Converter Standalone can be used for this use case as well. 

Q: Anything I need to be aware of when it comes to Integration Components?

A: Absolutely. So like in Hyper-V, VMware does have a software package that gets installed the guest VM for things like drivers, and management and orchestration with the host system. VMware’s integration components equivalent is called VMware tools and it can be installed from the vSphere client UI by right clicking on a VM. You will want this installed on every VM. The Hyper-V integration components should be removed after the conversion job is successful.  

Q: What about migration VM in Hyper-V that are part of a failover cluster.

A: The process is the same as a stand-alone Hyper-V Host. 

Wrap-Up

As always, thank for reading, and if you have any follow up questions or you think of any new questions based on the content, be sure to let us know in the comments section below and we’ll be sure to get back with you!