Accelerating Workload Mobility with Zero Copy Migrations using Nutanix Move

Migrating Virtual Machines (VM) between different hypervisors historically meant copying the VM data over the network from the source to the target environments. This process can result in long migration data seeding times and often the whole migration plans revolve around how quickly the data can be copied. The Nutanix Move migration tool changes the paradigm in version 6.3 by integrating with leading storage vendor Everpure. The technology leverages Everpure’s APIs to clone VMware vVol based virtual disks within the same FlashArray. This means the data stays in place, and migrations are designed to complete rapidly, often in minutes depending on the environment, configuration, and workload characteristics.

Figure 1: An animation depicting the zero copy migration process at a high-level.

Key Benefits of Zero Copy Migrations

Zero Copy Migrations offer significant operational and economic advantages to organizations who want to migrate from VMware ESXi to Nutanix AHV while protecting their storage investments. 

• Speed and Efficiency: Designed to significantly reduce overall migration time by utilizing native array-level cloning.
• Seamless Migration Scaling: Since the network bandwidth and the typical data seeding times do not come into play, large scale migration waves and enterprise VMs can be migrated efficiently and with minimal manual intervention.
• Cost Savings: The zero copy migration approach is designed to maximize the existing storage array investments without requiring additional hardware for storage. 

The Zero Copy Migration Process

Nutanix Move provides a streamlined process for performing Zero Copy Migrations in the migration planning workflow.

• Configure Clusters and External Storage: Create Nutanix compute cluster and register with an Everpure FlashArray external storage which contains the vDisks of VMware VMs that are to be migrated.
  The Nutanix compute cluster connects to the Everpure FlashArray using NVMe/TCP protocol without the need for any direct-attached storage.  The Move virtual appliance (or appliances) is deployed from a virtual machine image, usually to the target Nutanix cluster.
• Add External Storage to Move: Enter the Everpure FlashArray details in Move

Figure 2: Adding External Storage Vendor credentials to Move

• Add Source and Target Details: Register both the source VMware ESXi host or vCenter and target Nutanix cluster details in Move.
• Create a Migration Plan: Initiate a new Migration Plan and select Zero Copy Migrations as the Migration Type

Figure 3: Select Zero Copy Migration in Migration Plan

• Select Storage Array: Choose the Everpure Storage Arrays registered with the target AHV cluster hosting the VMs that need to be migrated. Then select the registered Nutanix Container for the target.
• Select VMs for Migration: Move identifies potential VMs in the VM selection workflow. Users can select a set of VMs for migration. Any VM that is not eligible for Zero Copy migrations will be identified clearly:

Figure 4: VM filtering and selection for Zero Copy Migration

Move identifies the reason why some VMs are not eligible for Zero copy migration:

Figure 5: Information icon identifies why some VMs are not migrateable using Zero Copy

• VM Preparation and VM Settings: Once the VMs are selected for migrations, users select all the other required parameters for migration like the VM Network, VM preparation details, and various settings like IP/MAC retention, etc.
  Once the plan is ready the user is presented with a summary of the selections made. At this point the plan is ready for execution. 
• Migration Execution and Cutover
  Once a Zero Copy migration plan is triggered, Move performs a validation of the plan. Post validation, the VMs will be in the Preparation phase. Once the VMs are prepared, they are transitioned to ‘Ready to Cutover’ state as there is no data to copy or seed from source to target.
  
  The cutover process can be triggered manually or scheduled. When a cutover is triggered, the following actions are performed.
  
  
  • Move shuts down the source VMs and disconnects the virtual NICs.
  • Move creates a target VM with the similar configuration as the source VM and provisions it with empty placeholder vdisks that are similar to the source 
  • Move triggers the Everpure FlashArray Clone APIs for each of the vdisks belonging to each of the VMs
  • Once the cloning is completed, Move powers on the target VM and performs the remaining VM config updates and target side preparation.

The cutover process is streamlined because it does not involve any final delta sync of data. Neither does it involve any vDisk consolidation. Once the cutover completes, users can start managing the VMs from Nutanix Prism Central directly.

• Rollback
  In the event that a migration needs to be rolled back, the original VMs are still available in the source environment, albeit with a note added to the VM and its vNIC disconnected. An operator can simply shutdown (or delete) the VM on the target site and then re-configure the original source VM before powering it on. This straightforward rollback methodology means that, should your migration wave not go to plan, you have the original position to fall back on, helping organizations address a common migration concern.

Conclusion

Zero Copy Migrations from VMware vVols offer a streamlined and efficient path to migrate to Nutanix AHV for Everpure Flash Array customers.  By eliminating data copying and disk format conversions, migrations are quick, repeatable and mitigate the risks associated with more manual methods. This process is designed to to help minimize temporary storage overhead associated with dual running source and target environments during migrations. Overall, it is a simplified, streamlined mechanism to migrate workloads and accelerate their evacuations from VMware to the Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) infrastructure software stack with EverPure Flash Array storage. 

For more information on Nutanix Move please visit the Move product page: https://www.nutanix.com/products/move

For detailed information on Nutanix’s partnership with Everpure storage see: https://www.nutanix.com/everpure