Relocate migration options

Notice

As of April 30, 2024, VMware Cloud on AWS is no longer resold by AWS or its channel partners. The service will continue to be available through Broadcom. We encourage you to reach out to your AWS representative for details.

VMware HCX

You can use the VMware HCX relocate migration option to migrate your on-premises VMs, applications, and workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS. VMware HCX optimizes access to AWS services by using the enterprise-class VMware Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) in the AWS Cloud.

For more information, see VMware Cloud on AWS in the VMware documentation. For an overview of VMware Cloud on AWS, watch the Accelerate Cloud Migration and Modernization with VMware Cloud on AWS video on the AWS YouTube channel.

VMware HCX use cases

VMware HCX is applicable to the following use cases:

• Hybridity (data center extension) – You’re extending an existing, on-premises VMware SDDC to the AWS Cloud to provide footprint expansion, on-demand capacity, a testing/development environment, and virtual desktops.

• Cloud evacuation (data center infrastructure refresh) – You’re consolidating data centers and moving completely to the AWS Cloud, which includes handling data center co-location or end-of-lease scenarios.

• Application-specific – You’re moving individual applications to the AWS Cloud to meet specific business needs.

VMware HCX options

The following table provides an overview of the VMware HCX options for relocating your VMware vSphere workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS.

Migration type	Migration option	How it works	Advantages	Disadvantages
Bulk migration	VMware HCX Bulk Migration	Use host-based replication to move VMs between HCX data centers. For more information, see Understanding VMware HCX Bulk Migration in the VMware documentation.	Keeps source VMs operational until cutover starts Reduces downtime to the equivalent of a reboot by leaving the source VM online during replication Reduces migration time by migrating VMs concurrently Good option for mass migration of VMs from a data center Can schedule cutover to migrated VMs Can manage cloud-based resources with familiar VMware tools, which minimizes the learning curve for migrating VMware workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS	Requires system restart to change system identity configurations (for example, hostname, IP, and SID) Can’t migrate individual VMs as fast as VMware vMotion
Cloud migration to VMware Cloud on AWS	VMware HCX Cold Migration for powered-off VM migration	Use the VMware NFC protocol to automatically select when the source VM is powered off. Migration duration depends on available bandwidth and latency between source and target sites. For more information, see Understanding VMware HCX vMotion and Cold Migration in the VMware documentation.	Preserves VM IP address and MAC address Enables fast migration of individual VMs Good for low risk VMs Good for VMs in development or testing environments	Moves VMs one at a time and doesn’t provide an option to migrate VMs in parallel Has downtime and requires VMs to be powered off for migration Requires a throughput capability of 100 Mbps or higher No support for VMs with attached virtual media or ISOs No support for VMs with shared VMDK files
Cloud migration to VMware Cloud on AWS	VMware HCX vMotion for powered-on VM migration	Use the VMware vMotion protocol to move VMs to a remote site. Migration duration depends on available bandwidth and latency between source and target platforms. For more information, see Understanding VMware HCX vMotion and Cold Migration in the VMware documentation.	Keeps source VMs operational until cutover starts No downtime Good option for migrating production-critical VMs Fastest option for migrating individual VMs Preserves the IP address and MAC address of the VM Good option for VMs that are at risk of shutting down or restarting the instance Can transfer a live VM from a VMware HCX-enabled vCenter Server to a VMware HCX-enabled destination site (or from the VMware HCX-enabled destination site to the local site)	Moves one VM at a time and doesn’t provide an option to migrate VMs in parallel Requires a throughput capability of 100 Mbps or higher No support for VMs with attached virtual media or ISOs No support for VMs with shared VMDK files
Bulk migration with zero downtime	VMware HCX Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV)	You can achieve fast bulk migration with no downtime. For more information, see Understanding VMware HCX Replication Assisted vMotion in the VMware documentation.	Combines advantages from VMware HCX Bulk Migration (such as parallel operations, resiliency, and scheduling) with VMware HCX vMotion (such as zero downtime VM state migration) Keeps source VMs operational until cutover starts No downtime Can perform large-scale live migrations Can specify cutover window Provides latency and varied network and service conditions Can switchover large number of VMs with a shorter maintenance window Reduces migration downtime by migrating VMs concurrently Good for mass migration of VMs from a data center Good for VMs that are at risk of shutting down or restarting the instance Good for migrating production critical VMs	No support for on-premises to on-premises migrations Requires a throughput capability of 100 Mbps or higher No support for VMs with attached virtual media or ISOs No support for VMs with shared VMDK files

Note

Make sure that you have a version of VMware vSphere that’s HCX compatible in both your source and target environments. For more information on HCX system requirements, see VMware HCX Documentation in the VMware documentation.

VM Import

You can use VM Import to import VM images from your existing virtualization environment to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances. That means that you can migrate applications and workloads to Amazon EC2, copy your VM image catalog to Amazon EC2, or create a repository of VM images for backup and disaster recovery. You can use VM Import to take advantage of your existing investments in the VMs that you have built to meet your IT security, configuration management, and compliance requirements by bringing those VMs into Amazon EC2 as ready-to-use instances.

To import your images, use the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or other developer tools to import a VM image from your VMware environment. If you use the VMware vSphere virtualization platform, you can also use the AWS Management Portal for vCenter to import your VM. As part of the import process, VM Import converts your VM to an Amazon EC2 Amazon Machine Image (AMI), which you can use to run Amazon EC2 instances. After your VM has been imported, you can take advantage of Amazon’s elasticity, scalability, and monitoring by using Auto Scaling, Elastic Load Balancing, and Amazon CloudWatch to support your imported images. You can import Windows and Linux VMs that use VMware ESX or VMware Workstation, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer virtualization formats.

VM Import is available at no additional charge beyond standard usage charges for Amazon EC2 and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). You are billed separately for the use of Amazon S3 and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) storage, which is required during the import and export process. For more information, see VM Import/Export and VM Import/Export User Guide in the AWS documentation.

VM Import use cases

VM Import is applicable to the following use cases:

• Your source platform is VMware vSphere and the target platform is AWS native.

• Your source is VMware vSphere and the vSphere version is not compatible with VMware HCX. The target platform is VMware Cloud on AWS.

• You’re manually migrating a single instance to AWS native or VMware Cloud on an AWS target platform.

VM Import migration options

The following table provides an overview of the VMware Import migration options for importing your VMs to EC2 instances.

Migration type	Migration option	How it works	Advantages	Disadvantages
Uses a VM image as the source	Image import	Use VM Import/Export to import VM images from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as AMIs. Then, you can use the AMIs to launch instances. For more information, see Importing a VM as an image using VM Import/Export in the Amazon EC2 documentation.	Alternative migration option for VMware workloads that are not compatible with VMware HCX for migrating VMs to Amazon EC2 Can migrate VMs by using VMware’s workload VM image as a source Can use your investments in existing VMs that already meet your IT security, configuration management, and compliance requirements by migrating them to Amazon EC2 Can export the VM images from an EC2 instance back to your virtualization environment	Requires a manual relocate migration Only migrates one VM at a time Requires an S3 bucket for storing exported images within the same AWS Region where your EC2 instance is launched Standard S3 bucket rates apply
Uses a VM instance as the source	Instance import	Use VM Import/Export to import VM images from your virtualization environment to Amazon EC2 as instances. Important We recommend that you use image import instead of instance import. For more information, see Importing a VM as an instance using VM Import/Export in the Amazon EC2 documentation. Note The AWS CLI doesn’t support importing a VM as an instance, so you must use the deprecated Amazon EC2 Command Line Interface (Amazon EC2 CLI).	Alternative migration option for VMware workloads that are not compatible with VMware HCX for migrating VMs to Amazon EC2 Can migrate VMs by using VMware’s workload VM instances as a source Can use your investments in existing VMs that already meet your IT security, configuration management, and compliance requirements by migrating them to Amazon EC2 Can export the VM images from an EC2 instance back to your virtualization environment	Requires a manual relocate migration Migrates only one VM at a time Requires an S3 bucket for storing the exported images within the same AWS Region where your EC2 instance is launched Standard S3 bucket rates apply
Uses a VM disk snapshot as the source	Snapshot import	Import your disks as Amazon EBS snapshots. After the snapshot is created, you can create an EBS volume from the snapshot, and then attach the volume to an EC2 instance. The disk formats supported are Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), ESX Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), and raw. For more information, see Importing a disk as a snapshot using VM Import/Export in the Amazon EC2 documentation. Note An imported snapshot has an arbitrary volume ID. We recommend that you avoid using that that ID for any purpose.	Alternative migration option for VMware workloads that are not compatible with VMware HCX for migrating VMs to Amazon EC2 Can migrate VMs by using a VM snapshot as a source Can use your investments in existing VMs that already meet your IT security, configuration management, and compliance requirements by migrating them to Amazon EC2 Can export the VM images from an EC2 instance back to your virtualization environment	Requires a manual relocate migration Migrates only one VM at a time Requires an S3 bucket for storing the exported images in the same AWS Region where your EC2 instance is launched Standard S3 bucket rates apply

VM Import migration architectures

The following diagram shows the architecture for the migration option to import from an image.

The following diagram shows the migration option to import from an instance.

The following diagram shows the migration option to import from a snapshot.

VM Export

You can use VM Export to import VM images from your existing environment to EC2 instances, and then export the VM images back to your on-premises environment. You can also export imported instances back to your on-premises virtualization infrastructure, so that you can deploy workloads across your IT infrastructure.

You can export previously imported EC2 instances by using the Amazon EC2 API tools to specify the target instance, VM file format, and destination S3 bucket. Then, VM Import/Export automatically exports the instance to the S3 bucket. You can then download and launch the exported VM from your on-premises virtualization infrastructure.

VM Export is available at no additional charge beyond standard usage charges for Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3. You are billed separately for the use of Amazon S3 and Amazon EBS storage, which is required during the import and export process. For more information, see VM Import/Export and VM Import/Export User Guide in the AWS documentation.

VM Export use cases

VM Export is applicable to the following use cases:

• Your source is an EC2 instance and your target is VMware vSphere.

• You want to manually export a single instance from Amazon EC2 to a VMware vSphere target environment.

VM Export migration options

The following table provides an overview of the VMware Export migration options for exporting your VM images to your virtualization environment.

Migration type	Migration option	How it works	Advantages	Disadvantages
Uses an AMI as the source, which you can export to one of the image formats supported by VMware vSphere by using a command line tool	Export from an AMI	Use an AMI to standardize your on-site instances, and export most AMIs to Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware vSphere. For more information, see Exporting a VM directly from an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) in the Amazon EC2 documentation.	Can migrate your EC2 instance to your on-premises virtualization environment by using an AMI as a source Can export a VM file based on an AMI when you want to deploy a new standardized instance in your on-site virtualization environment	Requires a manual relocate migration Migrates only one VM at a time to your on-premises virtualization environment Requires an S3 bucket for storing the exported images within the same AWS Region where your EC2 instance is launched Standard S3 bucket rates apply Limited to no more than 5 conversion tasks per AWS Region in progress at the same time (can increase the limit up to 20) No support for VMs with volumes larger than 1 TiB
Uses an instance as the source	Export from an instance	You create a replica of your EC2 instance in your on-site virtualization environment, which you can use for evaluation and testing. You can also export most EC2 instances to Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, or VMware vSphere. For more information, see Exporting an instance as a VM using VM Import/Export in the Amazon EC2 documentation.	Can migrate your EC2 instance to your on-premises virtualization environment by using an EC2 instance as the source Can export as a VM when you want to deploy a copy of an EC2 instance in your on-site virtualization environment	Requires a manual relocate migration Migrates only one VM at a time to your on-premises virtualization environment Requires an S3 bucket for storing the exported images within the same AWS Region where your EC2 instance is launched Standard S3 bucket rates apply Limited to no more than 5 conversion tasks per AWS Region in progress at the same time (can increase the limit up to 20) No support for VMs with volumes larger than 1 TiB

VM Export migration architectures

The following diagram shows the migration option to export from an AMI.

The following diagram shows the architecture for the migration option to export from an instance.

VMware HCX OS Assisted Migration

You can use HCX OS Assisted Migration (OSAM) to move Linux-based or Windows-based guest (non-VMware vSphere) VMs from their host environment to a VMware vSphere data center. This migration type is ideal for moving VMs from non-VMware vSphere environments, such as KVM or Microsoft Hyper-V. Similar to a bulk migration, the VM remains online during the replication process. After initial replication is completed, VMware HCX performs a hardware mapping, driver installation, and OS configuration for the new VMware vSphere VM, and then reboots the VM. After the VM is rebooted, a delta sync is kicked off and then the cutover is initiated. Finally, VMware Tools is installed on the migrated VM.

The following table provides an overview of the OSAM migration option for migrating your non-VMware vSphere VMs to a VMware vSphere data center.

Migration type	Migration option	How it works	Advantages	Disadvantages
Non-VMware vSphere	OSAM	You must use an agent-based migration that requires the installation of Sentinel software on Linux- or Windows-compatible servers to enable replication from the source environment to VMware vSphere. For more information, see Understanding VMware HCX OS Assisted Migration in the VMware documentation.	Keeps source operational until cutover Good for migrating guest (non-VMware vSphere) VMs Reduces migration downtime by migrating VMs concurrently Supports 200 concurrent VM disk migrations Replatforms and relocates non-VMware vSphere VMs to VMware vSphere VMs Can schedule cutover to migrated VMs	Requires the installation of Sentinel software on each source Linux- or Windows-based guest VM Requires an HCX Enterprise license Requires a complex migration setup and installation of agent to source servers Not available for VMware Cloud on AWS as the target