A Switch from one hypervisor to another needs special tools to convert virtual disks and layouts. There is a Free Tool from StarWind called V2V Converter / P2V Migrator. It's kinda 2-in-1 tool which can do the conversion job, and it can also, if you need, convert some physical machine you might have left non-virtualized.
I know from my own experience, that while virtualization has been around since along time, there are still small companies, with two, three or more servers running dedicated OS on their hardware without being virtualized. Once you convert such a server and you have the content of the physical hard disks as VMDKs, VHDXs or other formats, you can either copy those to your newly acquired hypervisor software, or you can upload those to your cloud provider's datacenter.
StarWind V2V Converter / P2V Migrator is already at version 9.0 !
StarWind V2V Converter / P2V Migrator allows migrating and copying virtual machines between hosts with different hypervisors. It also enables to convert a physical machine into a virtual one located on any industry-standard hypervisor server with no risk of breaking data consistency. The utility is compatible with major hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, and KVM.
StarWind V2V Converter / P2V Migrator works with all major VM formats: VMDK, VHD/VHDX, QCOW2, and StarWind-native IMG. It functions both ways, converting from and to any VM format.
The tool is very easy to use. First you download and install the software on your management Windows workstation (there is no Linux/MAC version). After you start the software and chose the source. This can be physical machine, local virtual disk, remote ESXi server, Microsoft Hyper-V.
If you already have some workloads at Amazon or Azure and want to get them back to your datacenter, there are options for such conversions too. The tool is really complete and really flexible.
As a destination, you have plenty of choices….
V2V Converter is able to convert directly between hypervisors with consistent VSS snapshots. This tool is a unique tool that offers bi-directional conversion between the industry's major hypervisors.
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It supports bi-directional VM conversion between different hypervisors. For saving time during migration and hypervisor switch, V2V Converter / P2V Migrator enables to convert VMs directly from one hypervisor storage to another, without creating an extra VM disk copy.
The utility ensures a safe P2V migration by using a VSS snapshot of the source machine to ensure data consistency.
Pretty cool IMHO, however, you should know that you must shut down the VM you want to convert first!
StarWind V2V Converter / P2V Migrator Features
P2V – StarWind V2V Converter allows migrating physical environment to virtual one with a minimum interaction of IT administrator. With P2V feature there is no need to build VMs for a physical server from scratch as V2V will simply convert a physical box into a VM.
Windows Repair Mode – StarWind V2V Converter makes migration between different hardware sets easier, supporting Windows Repair Mode during conversion to VHDX. This way, the VM automatically adapts to the given hardware environment, negating any compatibility problems.
Zero-Copy – StarWind V2V Converter allows easily converting VM formats directly from one hypervisor to another. Conversion process becomes simpler as there is no need to create copies of the source and destination VM files on the local machine.
Hypervisor Switch – StarWind V2V Converter supports all industry-standard hypervisors including Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, and KVM. By converting VMs from and to any selected format, it allows easily migrating between different hypervisors.
Supported formats – StarWind V2V Converter supports all modern formats such as VMDK, VHDX/VHD, RAW IMG, QCOW2, and StarWind native IMG files. It works both ways, converting from and to any selected format, thus having better functionality than similar converters.
Final words
With every company, there is a need for conversion from one system to another. It can be test workloads, POC, or migrations of production (or part of production) workloads. Imagine, for example, that with portability and virtualization, you can create a shadow IT in the cloud and run a shadow secondary site for critical workloads and test whether you can finally go “full cloud” or just keep some critical VMs in the cloud while the majority of your workloads still runs at your home datacenter.
With data protection and disaster recovery scenarios, the need for conversion of workloads is still here and will be for the years to come. I don't think that the historical actors (Microsoft, VMware, AWS) will change much in the future, but the need for conversion, testing, DR, backup, will still be around.
Download from this page at StarWind
Enjoy -:)
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