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VMware to Vates – Migration tool for XCP-NG and Xen Orchestra

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Lately, the VMware landscape has felt like a rollercoaster – first the Broadcom acquisition shakes things up, then licensing costs skyrocket, and suddenly, everyone's asking: “Is it time to jump ship?” If you're nodding along, pull up a chair. Today, we're talking about migrating from VMware to XCP-NG, the robust, community-driven Xen-based hypervisor that's been my favorite for quite a while (allong with Proxmox ofc.).

VMware To Vatest Migration Tool

V2V (VMware to Vates) tool, integrated right into Xen Orchestra. It's a tool equivalent of VMware converter, but for conversions FROM VMware….

Click Menu Import > From VMware

Tools like VMware to Vates (“V2V”) make migrations easier. Also, you should check the VMware To Vatest migration guide on the Vates.tech blog.

Why Migrate to XCP-NG?

VMware has been the gold standard for enterprise virtualization, but recent changes have many admins rethinking their stacks. Subscription models, per-core pricing, and support tiers that feel more like a loyalty test than a service have pushed costs through the roof. Many compagnies cannot afford to pay that.

Enter XCP-NG: It's essentially a fork of Citrix XenServer, stripped of proprietary bits and supercharged by the community. Free to use (with optional paid support from Vates), it's enterprise-grade without the handcuffs.

Features like live migration, high availability, and GPU passthrough rival vSphere, but with a fraction of the overhead. Pair it with Xen Orchestra (XO) – Vates' web-based management UI – and you've got a vCenter alternative that's intuitive, feature-rich, and runs as a VM on your XCP-NG cluster.

From a practical standpoint, XCP-NG shines in resource efficiency. No vendor lock-in, just solid, open-source performance. And good news is that you have the migration tool built-in witin your Xen Orchestra.

The VMware To Vatest tool is using VMware VDDK for conversion and it is much faster than with the original release.

Quote:

V2V engine, using VDDK, considerably accelerating the migration, and allowing warm migration. This code is now landing in stable as it was working great!

and from the other, detailed release notes:

the new backend reads only allocated blocks, which speeds up transfers. Additionnally having snapshot does not have a notable performance impact. There’s no longer a need for temporary NFS storage or remote VSAN targets. The system is also designed to handle very large disks, with support for sizes beyond 2 TB (planned for a future update).

According to Vates' guide, this tool handles direct conversion from ESXi to XCP-NG, no OVA exports required.

Introducing V2V: VMware to Vates Migration Made Simple

At the heart of this migration is V2V, Vates' clever utility baked into Xen Orchestra. Short for “VMware to Vates” (with a nod to virtual-to-virtual conversion), it's designed to bridge the gap between vSphere and the Vates stack (XCP-NG + XO). No agents to install on guest VMs, no downtime marathons – just point, click, and stream. Hot conversions, but if problems, cold ones…

Key perks the Vates docs:

  • Remote Access: Connect to any ESXi host via API (HTTP/HTTPS). Ideal for multi-site setups or air-gapped environments.
    Warm Migration Support: For VMFS5 datastores, migrate live VMs with minimal interruption. VMFS6? Shut down first, but it's still faster than manual methods.
  • Snapshot Handling: Leverages VMware snapshots for delta transfers, making incremental syncs a breeze.
  • Disk Optimization: Thin provisioning on the XCP-NG side skips empty blocks, saving storage.

Limitations

Disks over 2TB-8MB need manual splitting (use Clonezilla or rsync post-import), and you'll want to uninstall VMware Tools beforehand to avoid boot hiccups. As the Vates guide notes, it's “entirely done in streaming ‘on the fly',” which means your VMs land ready-to-run.

Yes, for now, XCP-NG disks are limited to 2TB….

Prerequisites

  • XCP-NG Cluster Ready: At least one host running XCP-NG 8.2 or later. Install via ISO—it's a 10-minute affair. Configure storage (local SRs or shared like NFS/iSCSI) and networking (PIFs, VLANs).
  • Xen Orchestra Appliance: Deploy XO as a VM on your XCP-NG host. Grab the OVA from xen-orchestra.com, import via XO's UI, and register it (free tier for testing, Pro for production). Update to the latest—5.79 or newer unlocks full V2V features.
  • VMware Side Cleanup:Uninstall VMware Tools from all guest VMs.
  • Remove unnecessary snapshots and unmount ISOs.
  • Network and Storage Paths: V2V streams via XO, so ensure low-latency links. For warm migrations, define a “default backup network” in XO for data writes.

Check the step-by-steps at the XCP-NG Docs.

Video section where Olivier Lambert speaks about the V2V:

Enjoy..

More about XCP-NG

Note: If you want to deploy your Xen Orchestra from sources (on Linux) just follow this guide. I did a test install in the lab on a Debian Linux 13 and it worked like a charm -:).

As you can see, I'm using VMware Workstation (Free now) so I can install several different labs and my only limitation is available RAM.

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About Vladan SEGET

This website is maintained by Vladan SEGET. Vladan is as an Independent consultant, professional blogger, vExpert x17, Veeam Vanguard x11, VCAP-DCA/DCD, ESX Virtualization site has started as a simple bookmarking site, but quickly found a large following of readers and subscribers.

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Comments

  1. Florent BEAUCHAMP says

    Hi Vladan,

    I am working on V2V on VATES, and I am glad you find this work useful. Just a little correction, from the 5.110 onward, warm migration is working for all the supported format, including VMFS6 and VSAN. We intend to open import of disk > 2TB as soon as the beta of the qcow2 support is ready on XCP-ng side

    Regards,
    Florent

    Reply

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