From: Richard W.M. Jones Date: Wed, 20 Aug 2025 10:20:47 +0000 (+0100) Subject: Add virt-v2v competitive landscape talk X-Git-Url: http://git.annexia.org/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=c358a5d9e48e2a552ae1badffc54bfa1ea9d20ea;p=libguestfs-talks.git Add virt-v2v competitive landscape talk --- diff --git a/2025-v2v-competitive/notes.txt b/2025-v2v-competitive/notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56d2b1a --- /dev/null +++ b/2025-v2v-competitive/notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,218 @@ +Broadly 4 strategies found: + +(1) Just copy + + => Proxmox + + => several others have this as a fallback for unsupported OSes + (including MTV) + + +(2) Source agent does changes, followed by copy + + => Nutanix, Platespin, NetApp + + => IMHO the most compatible method, but requires guest credentials + + => several other solutions have optional source agents, for faster copying + + +(3) Copy, then modify on the target + + => Coriolis, Azure, AWS, GCP, VMware + + => virt-v2v conceptually works like this too + + +(4) Managed VMware ESXi + + => Azure, AWS, GCP have hosted VMware offerings + + +(5) Emulate VMware drivers + + => QEMU can support this since it can emulate VMware pvscsi & vmxnet3. + + => I only mention this because no one does it, which was surprising. + + +(6) Not enough info to tell what they are doing + + => Starwind, Datamotive, Civo + + + + +== Proxmox + +https://www.proxmox.com/en/services/training-courses/videos/proxmox-virtual-environment/proxmox-ve-import-wizard-for-vmware + +Just a disk copy. The guest is initially booted with SATA. They give +you a recommended set of manual steps to run afterwards, which +includes attaching the virtio-win ISO and installing drivers, and +manually installing the guest agent. + +== Nutanix Move + +https://www.nutanix.com/how-to/steps-to-migrate-to-nutanix-from-vmware +https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Move-v4_6:Nutanix-Move-v4_6 + +They have useful adjacent sizing and workload gathering tools. + +VMware Tools must be installed on the source. + +"Source preparation scripts" must be run on the source VM before +conversion. This rebuilds the initramfs / installs virtio drivers, +and retains IP addresses. + +"Data-only" conversions are also possible. Also you can do the source +preparation manually. + +Warm copying + cut-over (using snapshots + VDDK + CBT). + +== Platespin Migrate + +https://www.microfocus.com/documentation/platespin/ +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjgWoqgNbbM + +Requires VM login credentials (at Administrator / root level). + +The source and target VMs appear to communicate directly with +each other over a TCP port. + +Can do some crazy stuff like consolidating filesystems from different +disks together into a single disk, and changing EFI to BIOS, so it +seems likely that it may be rebuilding the VM on the target from +scratch. + +On Linux, uses blkwatch, LVM snapshots and fsfreeze/thaw, so it is +likely doing in-guest, block-level change block tracking. + +== Coriolis + +https://cloudbase.it/coriolis-vmware-to-openstack-web/ + +Copy disk over + +"OS morphing" step, which appears to mount the OS disks somewhere and +presumably modify them. + +It's source available here: +https://github.com/cloudbase/coriolis/tree/cef6f690744745ff3d9f19f26ab177b85158cc21/coriolis/osmorphing + +== StarWind + +https://www.starwindsoftware.com/starwind-v2v-converter + +I could find no useful information about what this is. It possibly +just converts the VM disk format and nothing else? + +== NetApp Shift + +Pre-conversion with an agent installed in the source VM, followed by a +clever in-place copy-and-format-conversion which means the copy can be +very fast. Requires you to use NetApp storage on both ends. + +== HPE Zerto + +https://www.hpe.com/us/en/zerto-software.html + +This is not really V2V as such. The software allows VMs to be +replicated between vSphere and Hyper-V (only) for some kind of +disaster recovery solution. While the live VM is running, block-level +replication keeps the replica in synch. Somehow VMs that are +replicated this way can run on either kind of hypervisor, which I +guess is quite clever. + +== Datamotive EasyMigrate + +https://www.datamotive.io/blog/moving-off-of-vmware-make-it-easy-with-datamotive + +The website is so full of BS it's really hard to tell what's going on. + +== Civo + +https://www.civo.com/vmware-alternative +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31eKJybGu1o + +No real technical details. + +== Microsoft VMware to Azure + +https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/migrate/start-here-vmware?view=migrate-classic +https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-local/migrate/migration-azure-migrate-vmware-overview?view=azloc-2507 + +They have "agent-based" and "agentless" but this appears to be +something like our cold vs warm conversions. Agentless uses VMware +snapshots + CBT. + +"Hydration" is the name they use for VM conversion. It is only done +for supported OSes, other OSes are converted unchanged. + +Hydration works by creating a new VM and attaching the copied disks +from the source VM, to make the changes. + +They also have a native VMware on Azure offering: + +https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-vmware/introduction + +== Amazon AWS Transform + +https://aws.amazon.com/transform/vmware/ + +(Acquisition of CloudEndure Migration, but I think this software is +different.) + +"MGN Connector" connects to each source guest over SSH or WinRM +(requiring credentials). Can also be done by manual installation. + +Snapshots + cutover. Uses VDDK. + +Seems as if driver installation is done post-copying. + +I think there may be two different pieces of software here, the older +MGN and the new VMware Transform? + +Amazon also have a VMware Service (Amazon EVS) + +== Google Cloud VMware Engine + +Google Cloud VMware Engine is essentially VMware on GCP: + +https://cloud.google.com/vmware-engine + +== Google Migrate to Virtual Machines services + +True VMware conversion, based on a 2018 acquisition of Velostrata +Manager. It boots the VM on the cloud directy, reading +disk blocks from the source. Claims to be agentless, and +yet able to convert the VM to run on GCP. + +Migrate Connector OVA running on VMware (instead of VDDK?) + +The current version seems to work quite differently from Velostrata. + +https://cloud.google.com/migrate/virtual-machines/docs/5.0/resources/vm-adaptations + +"OS adaptions" which are done after copying, include deploying the +agent and installing virtio drivers. Doesn't appear to require +credentials. + +List of errors possible is interesting: +https://cloud.google.com/migrate/virtual-machines/docs/5.0/support/os-adaptation-errors-warnings + +== VMware Converter + +https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/389242/vmware-vcenter-converter-download.html + +Can do P2V and V2V from a variety of other hypervisors. + +For Windows, requires installation of a guest agent on the source to +prepare the guest for conversion. It uses snapshots (so maybe CBT?). +At cut over, drivers are installed on the target and guest agents are +removed and installed. IP addresses are preserved. + +For Linux, it requires SSH access to inspect the source VM. After +copying over (which also happens over the SSH connection), it does +some reconfiguration inside the target VM presumably to create the new +initramfs, and then reboots.