OpenStack distributions

Guest VMs

• Refer to the "Supporting Conversions" section of this document.

Check the supported OpenStack distributions here and follow their deployment guides to install or upgrade to the latest version of T4O.

Enable Migration Tab on Horizon

Follow below steps to enable Migration Tab on Horizon.

1. Login to horizon container.

2. set DISABLED = False in following panel files.

_1806_migration_panel.py
_1807_migration_panel_group.py

These files can be found at <openstack_dashboard_installed_package_path>/enabled/

Example: /usr/share/openstack-dashboard/openstack_dashboard/local/enabled/ for RHOSP17.1

1. Restart horizon container.

Trilio uses a widely used tool virt-v2v for migration which is one of the open-source tools by Red Hat. The below-mentioned limitations are from this tool and thus a limitation for Trilio as well:

• virt-v2v cannot change the default kernel in the GRUB2 configuration, and the kernel configured in the VM is not changed during the conversion, even if a more optimal version of the kernel is available on the VM.

• After converting a virtual machine to KVM, the name of the VM's network interface may change, and thus requires manual configuration.

• Trilio does not support nested virtualization OpenStack deployments for VMware migration.

• For Windows VMs, post migration all the non system disk would be in offline state. You would need to login to the guest VM and manually bring all the attached disk online, follow the below steps:

1. To bring a disk online, run command prompt as an administrator.
2. Run command diskmgmt.msc
3. Right click on the offline disk and change it to Online.

• Windows VMs migrated with the Dry-Run type won't be bootable on OpenStack, as complete boot information won't be available until the guest VM is shut down.

Please refer to Post-Conversion Tasks for more information.

Other Limitations specific to VM Migration:

• If any VM is having independent (i.e. not mounted on "/") /usr partition, then migration of such VM will fail with below error:

virt-v2v: error: inspection could not detect the source guest (or physical
machine).

Assuming that you are running virt-v2v/virt-p2v on a source which is
supported (and not, for example, a blank disk), then this should not
happen.

Inspection field 'i_arch' was 'unknown'.

Introduction

VM Migration Tool is a stand alone utility provided by Trilio for effective migration of VMs from VMWare to OpenStack. This will assist users in planning the migration, creating any missing artifacts, and providing a holistic view of the migration process at an organizational level.

Current document provides the steps to be followed for deploying respective tool.

1] Pre-requisites

A Linux VM (CentOS OR Ubuntu will do) with docker installed on it.

2] Prepare working dir and contents

2.1] Clone public repository triliovault-cfg-scripts on the standalone VM (at any convenient location) created for deploying the VM Migration tool.

git clone -b {{ trilio_branch }} https://github.com/trilioData/triliovault-cfg-scripts.git

2.2] On the VM, copy nginx, env, docker-compose.yml & vmosmapping.conf from triliovault-cfg-scripts to /opt directory.

cp -r triliovault-cfg-scripts/migration-vm2os/nginx /opt
cp triliovault-cfg-scripts/migration-vm2os/env /opt
cp triliovault-cfg-scripts/migration-vm2os/docker-compose.yml /opt
cp triliovault-cfg-scripts/migration-vm2os/vmosmapping.conf /opt

2.3] Set values against params in /opt/env file.

2.4] Set values against params in /opt/vmosmapping.conf file.

3] Deploy VM Migration Tool

3.1] To deploy the VM Migration Tool on standalone VM, please execute below command in background mode.

docker compose -f /opt/docker-compose.yml --env-file /opt/env up &

3.2] Deployment checks

• Run docker ps -a ; 4 containers should be running, viz redis, nginx, trilio_vm2os & opt-worker-1.

• Sample output below (Forwarded port number can be different as per the value provided in /opt/env file)

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE                                              COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                                               NAMES
1ed651c084d4   nginx:latest                                       "/docker-entrypoint.…"   5 seconds ago   Up 3 seconds   80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:5085->5085/tcp, :::5085->5085/tcp   nginx
8ff9f81b9913   trilio/trilio-migration-vm2os:5.2.3-dev-maint3-3   "gunicorn --config g…"   5 seconds ago   Up 4 seconds                                                       trilio_vm2os
1f91f14ad011   trilio/trilio-migration-vm2os:5.2.3-dev-maint3-3   "celery -A run.celer…"   5 seconds ago   Up 4 seconds                                                       opt-worker-1
0bb5574ad56b   redis:latest                                       "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 seconds ago   Up 4 seconds   0.0.0.0:6379->6379/tcp, :::6379->6379/tcp           redis

4] Access Tool Dashboard

Respective Migration tool can be accessed with URL : <VM_IP>:<NGINX_PORT> Example

http://192.168.6.25:5085/

For logging into dashboard, use the credentials provided under [user] section in /opt/vmosmapping.conf file

Preparing OpenStack + Trilio

You will need to be ready with below-mentioned resources before starting with the deployment:

VMware Resources

vCenter access information

• vCenter access URL

• vCenter access Username and Password

• SSL certificate for secured connection to VCenter (if not available, the SSL verification has to be marked false during configuration)

• The minimum set of permissions required for a vCenter user to successfully migrate VMs are as follows:

VMware vSphere Virtual Disk Development Kit 7.0

• Trilio requires this kit for the VM migration feature to work. You can download it from the VMware Customer Connect portal by accessing the below link

• https://customerconnect.vmware.com/downloads/get-download?downloadGroup=VDDK700

• Make sure you download the below-mentioned file

  Product	VMware vSphere Virtual Disk Development Kit 7.0

Windows VMs Preparation

• VMware tools need to be installed and should be in running state on all the windows VMs which are to be migrated. Alternatively, the guest OS may be shutdown but they should not be in power off state

OpenStack Resources

Glance Images

• For migrating UEFI booted VMware VMs, the OpenStack requires to have the instances with UEFI boot information and so as Trilio.

• So before doing the migration, the user needs to create a Glance image (any image) with following metadata properties:

  1. set hw_firmware_type property to UEFI

  2. set hw_machine_type property to q35

• This is not required for BIOS booted VMware VMs

Instace Flavors

• Trilio does not create any flavor for the migrating VMs instead it uses the available flavors.

• To avoid any booting issues post-migration, the user needs to have the correct flavors created and available for selection while initiating the migration.

Preparing the Guest VMs on ESXi

To leverage the Dry-run and Warm migration features, the vCenter and ESXi should support the Change Block Tracking(CBT) feature. Make sure that all the data disks attached to the VM, have the CBT enabled.

To enable the CBT, follow the instructions at VMware Knowledge Base

Also understand the limitations Trilio has described in this page.

Many organizations are looking to modernize their data centers and migrate from technologies like VMware to OpenStack. Although historically, VMware has been a dominant virtualization platform, trusted by many organizations for running mission-critical applications, the rapidly evolving technology landscape has already delivered the next generation of virtualization technologies. OpenStack and Kubernetes are setting the stage for edge computing and Hybrid & Multi-Cloud to emerge as industry standards.

Migrating from VMware to OpenStack offers compelling benefits:

1. Cost Savings: OpenStack significantly reduces licensing fees.

2. Vendor Independence: Avoid vendor lock-in and make choices based on how they favor your business.

3. Innovation and Collaboration: Open-source fosters rapid advancements.

4. Scalability and Elasticity: Automatically scale resources on demand

5. Multi-Cloud Support: Manage multiple clouds and data centers from one interface.

6. Integration with Open Source: Seamlessly integrate with Kubernetes and other open-source tools.

7. Community Support: Active community provides resources and expertise

By embracing OpenStack, you gain cost savings, flexibility, scalability, and a vibrant community, empowering your cloud infrastructure.

Migrating VMs from VMware to OpenStack has traditionally been a people-intensive and complex process requiring an "expert-intensive" investment.

Organizations must engage in detailed planning, consult experts, and consider utilizing tools and technologies to facilitate smooth migrations. Because each migration scenario is unique, it has been difficult to come up with best `practices and/or automation. This page is about how Trilio’s Intelligent Recovery https://trilio.io/ Platform can help simplify and automate the migration process.

Overview

Architecture

Native Service to OpenStack

Trilio’s backup and recovery solution is an OpenStack native service similar to Nova, Cinder, Glance, etc. This software-only solution can be deployed using OpenStack distribution-specific DevOps scripts. For example, Trilio’s solution is native to the RHOSP platform and can be deployed and managed using Red Hat Director.

Highly Scalable

We extended Trilio’s architecture to support migration at scale. Since Trilio migrates the VM from VMware ESXi to the OpenStack compute node, the solution scales with your VMware/OpenStack without suffering from performance bottlenecks.

Self-Service and Inline Migration

The process of migration usually involves moving virtual machines from a source platform to a target platform, however, the strategy to achieve this should be considered carefully.

If the migration process is initiated from the target platform, it is called inline migration. Trilio advocates inline migration as it helps map organizational structures such as data centers/clusters/folders in VMware to regions/domains/projects in OpenStack.

A project owner with sufficient privileges to their VMware resources can migrate the VMs to their project. If every project owner can migrate their resources from VMware, it provides better control to cloud architects to orchestrate the migration.

If the migration process is initiated from an outside source or target platform, it is called out-of-band migration. Out-of-band demands a centralized approach and places constraints on how cloud architects can design their OpenStack clouds.

Horizon Dashboard Plugin

A very intuitive tenant dashboard for the tenant to manage their migrations. If you want to migrate to KubeVirt, Red Hat’s MTV solution can be helpful.

Command Line Interface

The sub-commands for the migration feature are available as:

  migration-create                      Execute a migration plan.
  migration-delete                      Delete the migration.
  migration-plan-create                 Creates a migration plan.
  migration-plan-delete                 Remove a migration plan.
  migration-plan-get-import-list        Get list of migration_plans to be imported.
  migration-plan-import                 Import all migration plan records from backup store.
  migration-plan-show                   Show details about a migration plan.
  migration-plans-list                  List all the migration_plans of current project.
  migration-show                        Show details about migration of the migration plan
  migrations-list                       List all the migrations for the migration plan.
  

Migration APIs look and feel like OpenStack API. Each tenant can source their cloud rc and start using migration cli commands. CLI also helps users to extend their Ansible scripting for migration.

Migration Types

Trilio migration functionality supports three types of migrations

Dry-run

Dry-run lets users create the VMs on OpenStack with storage volumes, networking, and security groups attached. It does a migration of VM data from VMware to OpenStack by taking a snapshot of the VM without shutting it down and hence, does not guarantee the data/application consistency. Unlike Cold and Warm migration, there is no disruption to the VMware VMs during this migration. It is a handy feature for users to test VMs and their interconnectivity before completely migrating VMs.

Cold Migration

Cold migration shuts down the VMware VMs and migrates the VMs to OpenStack. Depending on the size of the data to migrate, cold migration can take minutes to hours to complete, and during the entire duration, the applications are unavailable. Cold migration is more disruptive than warm migration.

Warm Migration

Warm migration leverages VMware snapshot and the Change Block Tracking functionality to migrate VMs with less disruption. It first takes the VM snapshot and copies the full snapshot data to OpenStack. Depending on the size of the data, this upload operation may take a few minutes to a few hours. During this period the VM may have written a few more blocks of data, which then gets uploaded by taking a second snapshot of the VM. It then shutdowns the VM, takes another snapshot of the VM, copies the blocks that were changed since the last snapshot, and reboots OpenStack VMs. So warm migration incurs less disruption compared to cold migration.

Conclusion

Trilio's support for migrating VMware VMs to OpenStack is recognized as an industry-leading solution. Its scalability and ability to be deployed organization-wide scale make it a valuable choice for businesses. The self-paced approach provided by Trilio allows application owners to experiment with migration options and gain confidence before performing the final migration. In the context of businesses transitioning from vendor lock-in to open-source technologies, Trilio's migration feature can be a helpful tool in accelerating the transition process.