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Migrating VMware Shared workloads to VCF as a Service with cloud-to-cloud connections

Migrating VMware Shared workloads to VCF as a Service with cloud-to-cloud connections

VMware Shared is no longer be available for new deployments. Existing instances will continue to be supported until 15 January 2025. Ensure that you migrate all your VMware Shared resources to IBM Cloud® for VMware Cloud Foundation as a Service by 15 January 2025. For more information, see End of Support for VMware Shared deployments.

You can use VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) to migrate your workloads from a IBM Cloud® for VMware Solutions Shared virtual data center (VDC) to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as a Service. Find out how to migrate vAPP and virtual machine (VM) workloads in the following video.

Some documentation, including, but not limited to, tutorials, solutions architectures, solution guides, videos, and diagrams might still be using the old offering names. This information will be gradually updated to the new offering names in future releases.

Objectives

In this tutorial, you learn how to migrate vApps and VMs between your VCF as a Service instance and VMware Shared instances.

Pairings are automatically created to the closest geographical VMware Shared region when you install VCDA on a VCF as a Service instance. Migrations between VMware Shared and VCF as a Service require a pairing between the two offerings. The following pairings are supported and created automatically.

  • VCF as a Service DAL region pairs with VMware Shared DAL region
  • VCF as a Service WDC region pairs with VMware Shared DAL region
  • VCF as a Service FRA region pairs with VMware Shared FRA region

Before you begin

The VCDA service is optionally included in your VCF as a Service Cloud Director site order at no charge and is always included in multitenant VCF as a Service VDCs.

This tutorial requires:

  • An IBM Cloud billable account.

  • Required user permissions. Ensure that your user account has sufficient permissions to create and manage VCF as a Service resources.

  • A VMware Shared virtual data center instance to migrate.

  • A provisioned VCF as a Service VDC. You can use either a multitenant VDC or a single-tenant Cloud Director site with a VDC.

  • The VCDA service is installed in your VCF as a Service Cloud Director site instance. VCDA is installed by default in all multitenant VDCs.

  • The VCF as a Service instance must have networks created before you migrate.

  • If the VMs to migrate have connectivity to the IBM private network or the public internet, verify that the following edge requirements are met.

    • The VCF as a Service network(s) are connected to the edge.
    • The VCF as a Service VDC is created with an edge.
    • The VCF as a Service VDC edge has NATs and firewalls configured.

    You may need to update allowlists or DNS entries with new public IP addresses that result from the migration.

Create a VMware Shared pairing

  1. From the VMware Solutions console, install VCDA on a VCF as a Service single-tenant instance. For more information, see Adding and deleting VMware Cloud Director Availability.

    VCDA is preinstalled on multitenant instances.

  2. Create a VDC on the VMware Shared instance to migrate. For more information, see Ordering virtual data centers.

  3. From the VMware Shared VDC details page, click vCloud Director console. For more information, see Viewing site and virtual data center details.

  4. A local organization administrator user is required for VCDA migrations. To create a local user, click the Administration menu from the Director console.

  5. Expand Access Control and click Users.

  6. From the Users page, click NEW to create a new local user. Include the following information for the new user profile:

    • A password.
    • For Role, select Organization Administrator.
    • For Organization ID, enter the organization ID for the VDC. You can locate the ID in the vCloud Director console URL. For example, test_xxxx.

  7. Click FINISH to create the new user.

  8. Click Data Centers and locate the VDC.

  9. From the VDC, create a virtual machine (VM).

Migrate your VM through the VMware Shared pairing

  1. From the VMware Solutions console, go to the VMware Cloud Foundation as a Service instance with VCDA installed and click VMware console.
  2. From the VMware console, click More > Availability (<datacenter_name>). For example, Availability (sdirw360t04vcda).
  3. From the left panel, click Peer Sites to review the VMware Shared peer site options.
  4. Select the peer site for the VMware Shared workload to migrate and click LOGIN. The peer site name is the VMware Shared organization. To find the VMWare Shared organization name, log in to the Cloud Director user interface in VMware Shared and click a VDC. At the top of the web page, you can find the organization ID.
  5. Provide the following login credentials for the peer site and click LOGIN.
    • For Username, use the local user ID that you created in the VMWare console for the VMware Shared pairing.
    • For Password, use the local password ID that you created in the VMWare console for the VMware Shared pairing.

The login is successful when the green checkmark icon displays in the Management Session column for the peer site.

Replicate and migrate the VM to VCF as a Service

Ensure that the VMware Shared VM is powered on from the VMware console.

  1. From the VMware console, click Incoming Replications.

  2. From the Incoming Replications page, click ALL ACTIONS > New migration.

  3. Provide the login credentials for the peer site and click LOGIN.

  4. Select the following options in the New Incoming Migration window.

    • For Source VMs and vApps:
      1. From the Source organization menu, select the organization ID that you located in the URL when you created the user ID for the VMware Shared pairing.
      2. Select the VM to replicate and click NEXT.
    • For Destination VDC and Storage policy, select the target VDC to migrate the VM to and click NEXT.
    • For Settings, keep the default options and click NEXT.
    • For Ready to complete, review the settings and click FINISH.

    The VM is first configured and then synchronized. The replication is complete when the Last changed column moves from Synchronizing to the date and time of the replication.

  5. When the replication is complete, ensure that the newly replicated VM is selected and click ALL ACTIONS > Migrate to begin the migration.

  6. Select the following options from the Migrate window:

    • For Migrate Settings, keep the default options and click NEXT.
    • For Ready to complete, review the settings and click FINISH.

    The VCDA service copies the runtime data from the source VM to the destination VM. When the replication is complete, the migrated VM powers on in the Cloud Director site and powers off in the VMware Shared instance. The migration is complete when the Recovery state column moves from Not started to Failed-Over.

  7. Click the destination virtual data center name to verify the migration. Click Compute > Virtual Machines to view the VM.

  8. After the migration is complete, delete the failed-over migration. Click ALL ACTIONS > Delete replication.

The migration metadata is deleted. Deleting the replication does not delete the source or the destination VMs.