Tag: Migration

Jul122019July 12, 2019July 12, 20195 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure using Azure Migrate

Assess and Migrate Hyper-V VMs with Azure Migrate

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Virtualization, VMware, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019

Today, the Azure Migrate team launched an update to the Azure Migrate service, which can help you discover, assess, and migrate applications, infrastructure, and data from your on-prem environment to Microsoft Azure. This is excellent timing since we all know that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are soon out of support and you get free extended security updates if you migrate your VMs to Azure. With Azure Migrate, you can now centrally track the progress of your migration journey across multiple thrid-party and Microsoft tools. In addition, Azure Migrate can now assess and migrate your Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs).

With the latest release of Azure Migrate you can now:

Extensible approach with choice across Microsoft and popular ISV assessment and migration tools
Integrated experience for discovery, assessment, and migration with end-to-end progress tracking for servers and databases
Server Assessment and Server Migration for large-scale VMware, Hyper-V, and physical server migrations
Database Assessment and Database Migration across various database targets including Azure SQL Database and Managed Instance

You can find more about the Azure Migrate capabilities on Microsoft Docs. For more information on Azure Migration, check out my blog post about Azure Migration on the Nigel Frank International blog. In this post, I am going to show you how you can step-by-step assess and migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure using Azure Migrate.

Preparation

First, you need to prepare your Azure to set the right permissions and prepare the on-premises Hyper-V hosts and VMs for server assessment and migration. You can find more about the details for permissions and host preparations on Microsoft Docs.

Next, you will need to create a new Migration project for servers. Click on Asses and migrate servers.

Azure Portal Azure Migrate

Now you will need to add the tools you want to use for the assessment as well as for the migration, click on “add tools”.

Getting started

You will need to create a new Azure Migrate project. Enter the details for your subscription, resource group, and a name for the project. You will also need to choose a region where your project is going to be deployed. No worries, this will only store the assessment data, you can still select another region for the migration.

Jun282019June 28, 2019June 28, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Nigel Frank Migrating and extending with Microsoft Azure

Article about Azure Migration on Nigel Frank International

Posted in Blog, Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, Software, Virtualization, Windows Admin Center, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2019, Work

This week my blog post on Azure Migration and Hybrid Cloud on the Nigel Frank International blog went live. The title of the article is, Migrating and extending your on-premises environment with Microsoft Azure. In that blog post, I what your advantages are by using the cloud and some of the different approaches to use Microsoft Azure. Before I then go deeper on different Azure scenarios and topics.

I cover a lot of different Azure options like:

Assessment using Azure Migrate
Migrate to Azure IaaS using Azure Site Recovery
Migrate servers using Windows Admin Center and ASR
Migrating and running VMware on Azure
Extending on-premises with Azure Stack and Azure Stack HCI solutions
and much more

Read Article

Nigel Frank International

The public cloud is becoming more and more important for companies that want to stay agile and flexible to meet their business demands. But if a company decides to move to the public cloud, what are the best ways to migrate to Microsoft Azure? In this blog post, we’ll take a quick look at what services Microsoft offers to make your cloud migration easier.

It was fun to work with the team at Nigel Frank International and I hope you like the article.

Jun182019June 18, 2019June 18, 20190 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Migrate Amazon S3 bucket to Azure blob Storage

Migrate AWS S3 buckets to Azure blob storage

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Windows, Windows 10

With the latest version of AzCopy (version 10), you get a new feature which allows you to migrate Amazon S3 buckets to Azure blob storage. In this blog post, I will show you how you can copy objects, folders, and buckets from Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 to Azure blob storage using the AzCopy command-line utility. This makes it easy to migrate S3 storage to Azure or create a simple backup of your AWS S3 bucket on Azure.

AzCopy will use the Put Block from URL API, which allows you to directly copy files from AWS directly to Azure. This means you will not use a lot of bandwidth from your computer. You can even copy large objects or buckets from S3 to Azure.

Configure access and authorize AzCopy with Azure and AWS

First, you will need to install AzCopy to your machine. After that, you will need to authorize AzCopy with Microsoft Azure and AWS. To authorize with AWS S3, you have to use an AWS access key and a secret access key.

AWS access key and secret access key, and then set these environment variables:

OS	Command
Windows	set AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
	set AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
Linux	export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
	export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
macOS	export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
	export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=

Copy an AWS S3 object to Azure blob

You can copy a simple object using the following command:

azcopy cp "https://s3.amazonaws.com/tomsbucket/tomsobject" "https://tomsstorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/tomscontainer/tomsblob"

Copy and migrate Amazon S3 folder to Azure

You can copy a folder from the Amazon S3 bucket to the Azure blob storage:

azcopy cp "https://s3.amazonaws.com/tomsbucket/tomsfolder" "https://tomsstorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/tomscontainer/tomsfolder" --recursive=true

Copy an Amazon S3 bucket to Azure blob storage

You can also copy one or multiple Amazon S3 buckets to Azure:

azcopy cp "https://s3.amazonaws.com/tomsbucket" "https://tomsstorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/tomscontainer" --recursive=true

I hope this gives you a quick idea of how you can migrate data from Amazon AWS S3 storage to Azure using AzCopy. If you want to know more, check out the official Microsoft Docs about how to copy data from Amazon S3 buckets by using AzCopy.

Jan032019January 3, 2019May 16, 20192 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Extended Security Updates for SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on Azure Stack

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, PowerShell, SQL Server, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2019, Work

SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will both be out of extended support within the next 12 months (detailed dates below). This means if you have these versions, you’ll need to migrate to newer versions of SQL Server or Windows Server or buy Extended Support soon to maintain support and receive security updates and fixes. Buying Extended Support is not cheap. Customers with active Software Assurance or subscription licenses can purchase Extended Security Updates annually for 75 percent of the full license cost of the latest version of SQL Server or Windows Server. A lot of customers should start migrating to newer versions of these products to avoid these extra costs.

Extended Support dates

Extended Support for SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will end on July 9, 2019.
Extended Support for Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will end on January 14, 2020.

However, in mid-2018 Microsoft announced a new option for SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 End of Support. Customers running 2008 or 2008 R2 versions of SQL Server and Windows Server in Azure virtual machines will get Extended Security Updates for free. This will give customers some extra time to migrate to newer versions of SQL Server and Windows Server. Or even better, to Azure PaaS and serverless computing like Azure Functions.

The great thing about this is that you can also combine this with your Azure Hybrid benefits, to use your SQL Server and Windows Server on Azure with your on-premise licenses.

Extended Security Updates on Azure Stack

If you are thinking to migrate to the cloud, this new option will bring down costs for you. However, not everyone is fully ready to move all their servers to the public cloud. You might still need or want to run some servers on-premise in your datacenter. This will leave you with buying Extended Support or what a lot of people don’t know; you can also run your SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on Azure Stack and get Extended Security Updates for free since it is Azure!

This is great, especially since Azure Stack also comes with great IaaS capabilities. And if you are thinking about using Azure in the mid-term, Azure Stack provides you with Azure capabilities, but still allows you to stay in your datacenter.

Oct132014October 13, 2014October 13, 20142 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Microsoft releases Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.0

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Software, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, VMware, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Work

Microsoft today released the next version of the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC). (MVMC) is a Microsoft-supported, stand-alone solution for the IT pros or solution provider who wants to convert virtual machines and disks from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts and Microsoft Azure.

In MVMC 3.0 Microsoft adds the ability to convert a physical computer running Windows Server 2008 or above server operating systems or Windows Vista or above client operating systems to a Virtual Machine. This feature was highly claimed by the community, since the P2V (Physical to Virtual) Migration feature was removed in System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2.

MVMC can be deployed with minimal dependencies. Because MVMC provides native support for Windows PowerShell, it enables scripting and integration with data center automation workflows such as those authored and run within Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2 or Service Management Automation. It can also be invoked through the Windows PowerShell command-line interface. The solution is simple to download, install, and use. In addition to the Windows PowerShell capability, MVMC provides a wizard-driven GUI to facilitate virtual machine conversion.

This tool can not only help you to migrate from VMware or physical computers to Hyper-V, it also allows you to directly upload the Virtual Machine to Microsoft Azure.

You can get the new version of the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.0 in the Microsoft Download Center.

Nov142013November 14, 2013November 14, 20130 Commentby Thomas Maurer

Fast and Easy VMware to Hyper-V Migration

Posted in Cloud, Fun, Hardware, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Server Core, System Center, Virtualization, VMware, Web, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2012 R2, Work

Until now, planning a migration from VMware to Hyper-V meant that even though you’d save money, you’d spend days migrating the VMs in your datacenter.

Now you can do it in about 5 minutes.

In this video, Migration Mark discusses the remarkable tool that he built with his friends from NetApp:
The Migration Automation Toolkit (MAT)- Powered by Project Shift

Get more information on the migrate.azurewebsites.net/

Apr172013April 17, 2013April 17, 201319 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Migrate Hyper-V Cluster to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V via Cluster Migration Wizard

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Work

If you have already an existing Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster and you want to upgrade to Windows Server 2012 you have two options. The first one is by moving all virtual machines via System Center Virtual Machine Manager from the old Cluster into a new cluster. The second way to do it, is to use the Cluster Migration Wizard which is part of Windows Server 2012.

In my case I have two clusters one “old” Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V cluster and my new Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V cluster. Both Clusters are fully configured and both have access to the same disks/LUNs. The disk and all the VMs are running on the old cluster.

On the new cluster you can start the Cluster Migration Wizard.

This will bring up the Cluster Migration Wizard. The wizard will ask you about the old cluster.

The Cluster Migration Wizard will scan the old cluster for CSVs and Cluster roles. You have to select the Cluster Shared Volume you want to migrate to the new cluster. Note: you can only migrate CSVs including all virtual machines running on this CSV and not just single virtual machines. If you want to migrate single virtual machines you could do a Hyper-V Export/Import or using System Center Virtual Machine Manager.

Since the Cluster Migration Wizard detects the roles as Hyper-V virtual machines he also asks for the new Hyper-V Virtual Switch.

You get a quick summary with all the information what the Migration Wizard will do, and you can migrate all roles. This means the Migration Wizard will create all cluster roles on the new cluster but will not take the existing VMs offline the VMs at this point are still running on the old cluster. You also get a Failover Cluster Migration Report at the end.

This report also shows you what’s next:

All the clustered services and applications selected for migration were migrated successfully. You may now take the clustered services and applications offline in your old cluster. Also take offline Cluster Shared Volumes used by any migrated roles, as well as storage pools for virtual disks used by any migrated roles. Then these disks, Cluster Shared Volumes, and clustered services and applications can be brought online in your new cluster.

In the new cluster you can now see the roles which are all turned of because there are still running on the old cluster. And you can also see the CSV which is offline on the new cluster and online on the old cluster.

As already mentioned we had no downtime until now. Now you can go and shutdown all the virtual machines running on your old cluster and take the migrated CSV offline.

Take the CSV offline

On the new cluster bring the CSV online

Bring the virtual machines on the new cluster back online.

And this is more how you can migrate a cluster. Remember there are still some tasks left.

Upgrade the Integration Components of all the virtual machines to the newest version.
Convert all VHDs to the new VHDX format to dynamic disks.
I also recommend that you use CSV Block Cache

There is also a great video from Symon Perriman and Rob Hindman, a Program Manager on the Windows Server Clustering & High-Availability team, in which they explain how you can upgrade to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

Tag: Migration

Assess and Migrate Hyper-V VMs with Azure Migrate

Preparation

Extended Security Updates for SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on Azure Stack

Extended Security Updates on Azure Stack

Microsoft releases Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.0

Fast and Easy VMware to Hyper-V Migration

Migrate Hyper-V Cluster to Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V via Cluster Migration Wizard

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