Migrate Hyper-V Generation 2 VM to Nutanix AHV

Few weeks back Nutanix released new version of Acropolis Operating System (AOS) in version 4.6.1. There are several enhancements and new features worth to look closer at. For us, the most important is support for UEFI virtual machines. Which means, you can migrate Hyper-V generation 2 VM to Nutanix Acropolis.

Today’s post is about migrate Windows 2012R2 Generation 2 VM to Nutanix AHV.

Requirements:

• Acropolis OS (AOS) 4.7.0 or newer
• Acropolis HV (AHV – hypervisor) 20160601.20 or newer
• connectivity between hyper-V hosts and Nutanix CVM
• mounted container from AHV to Hyper-V

Acropolis storage mount to Hyper-V cluster

• Nutanix Acropolis knowledge and Microsoft hyper-V knowledge 🙂
• Installed Nutanix Application Mobility drivers – you can download it from portal.nutanix.com
• Remove all snapshots from VM
• Microsoft Sysytem Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012R2 (SCVMM) – optional

Step #1 – Transfer virtual machine disks from legacy storage to Nutanix Acropolis

If you have SCVMM, add Acropolis container to Hyper-V cluster as new file share storage and use build in migration feature to move disks.

Migrate storage to Nutanix AHV

Step #2 – power virtual machine off and convert VHDX disk to RAW

Shutdown virtual machine. Once done, ssh to Nutanix CVM and run qemu-img withparameters to convert from VHDX disk format to RAW format supported by Nutanix Acropolis.

nutanix@NTNX-15SM65300246-A-CVM:~$ qemu-img convert -f vhdx -O raw nfs://127.0.0.1/transfer/Win2k12R2Gen2HV/Win2k12R2Gen2HV_disk_1.vhdx nfs://127.0.0.1/transfer/Win2k12R2Gen2HV/Win2k12R2Gen2HV_disk_1.raw
nutanix@NTNX-15SM65300246-A-CVM:~$

Step #3 – Create VM and set uefi_boot=true

Create VM from PrismUI with no disk, add only network adapter. From acli, run command vm.update Win2k12R2Gen2HV uefi_boot=true

<acropolis> vm.list
VM name                      VM UUID
Win2k12R2-TMP                2fd7059b-83da-4c8e-aae8-c475ce337e0a
Win2k12R2Gen2HV              ca0ad416-1947-4d87-9d07-30345b5d2a8f
Win2k12R2HV                  d2721b61-ad82-47e8-b00f-a92465f50671
Win2k16TP4                   0258ba04-51eb-438d-a9fe-2e7cb90e7f06
Win2k2Sp2VMW                 fa81c474-ea09-4313-9295-7d2786bbbdd7
Win2k3R2Sp2                  ca425297-3c0f-43ef-acfc-3e795ad4b72a
Win2k3R2Sp2SCSI              9586c0b4-d82d-4c5e-8c63-a98193713386
<acropolis> vm.update Win2k12R2Gen2HV
annotation= Annotation string
cbr_not_capable_reason= If set, marks the VM incapable of CBR workflows
ha_priority= Numeric priority for HA restart. Negative value indicates no restart.
hwclock_timezone= Hardware clock timezone
memory= Memory size
name= VM name
num_cores_per_vcpu= Number of cores per vCPU
num_vcpus= Number of vCPUs
uefi_boot= UEFI boot
vga_console= VGA console device
<acropolis> vm.update Win2k12R2Gen2HV uefi_boot=true
Win2k12R2Gen2HV: complete
<acropolis>

Step #4 – add RAW disk to VM.

From PrismUI update VM by adding new disk from ADSF file, on SCSI BUS.

Add RAW disk to VM

Power VM on and that’s it. Hyper-V Generation 2 VM has been successfully migrated to Nutanix AHV.

VIDEO

CHANGE LOG:

• 26 Sep 2016 – updated hypervisor and AOS requirements