Nutanix Move Migration Guide

Nutanix Move Migration Tool previously known as Nutanix Xtract Tool developed by Nutanix to move / migrate V2V VMs migration from VMware Esxi, AWS, Hyper-V to Nutanix AHV Cluster. To do V2V migration needs Nutanix Move VM Tool default login credential : user name , password with system requirements / prerequisites , Network Firewall ports list to kick-off the migration.

Read also: Nutanix HCI Infra Network Port List

Nutanix Move enables simple, one-click migrations from ESXi, Hyper-V, and even out of AWS public cloud to AHV with minimal downtime. And just like AHV, Move is available for no additional fee.

I will share Nutanix Move tool downloading link also that make it easy to download the Nutanix Move tool latest version. Nutanix Move tool is freely available on Nutanix portal with Zero-Cost / No-cost, its 100% free to download.

Nutanix Move is a cross-hypervisor V2V migration solution to migrate VMs with minimal downtime. The downtime is incurred during cut-over from VMware ESXi, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Hyper-V as a source to an Nutanix HCI AHV cluster target.

Nutanix Move Tool Architecture

Nutanix Move is a distributed application to support V2V migration from a non-Nutanix source ( VMware Esxi, AWS and Hyper-V ) to Nutanix AHV Cluster target.

Read also: Nutanix Acropolis AHV Core Architecture Explained

Nutanix Move Tool Components

Nutanix Move Tool architecture is based on most critical functioning components like Nutanix-Move, NTNX-MOVE-AGENET, Change Block Tracking: CBT driver, those works to move / migrate V2V VMs migration from source hypervisor to destination Nutanix AHV hypervisor.

Read also: Nutanix Cluster’s Components and Acropolis Services Explained

How Nutanix Move Tool Components works ?

Now we will learn what is the role of Nutanix Move tool components and Nutanix Move Tool Comments works ? during V2V VMs migration from source third party hypervisor to Nutanix native AHV hypervisor as destination.

Nutanix Move Tool Components list is here:

• Nutanix Move VM
• NTNX-Move-Agent
• Change Block Tracking – CBT Driver

Nutanix-Move: a VM running on the Nutanix cluster to orchestrate the migration.

NTNX-MOVE-AGENT: an agent running on AWS as a EC2 instance of type t2.micro. NTNX-MOVE-AGENT interfaces with source VM to facilitate the migration, works with AWS APIs to take snapshots and transfers data from source to target. An NTNX-MOVE-AGENT instance is deployed in every region with the AWS account of the IAM user. When the last migration plan of the region is deleted from Nutanix Move, Nutanix Move stops the NTNX-MOVE-AGENT instance. When the source is removed, NTNX-MOVE-AGENT instance is terminated.

Note: Adding single AWS account as source with multiple IAM users is not supported.

Changed Block Tracking (CBT) Driver: a driver running on the source VMs to be migrated to facilitate efficient transfer of data from the source to the target. The driver is deployed as part of the source VM preparation and removed during post migration cleanup.

When you are migrating from ESXi to AHV, Nutanix-Move directly communicates with vCenter through the Management Server and the Source Agent. The Source Agent collects the information from the VMware library about the VM being migrated (User VM).

Note: Nutanix converts the source VM disks to AHV format.

Read also: Why Nutanix Adopted Prism as Service PaS ?

Nutanix Move Support Migration Platform

Nutnaix Move Supports migration from hypervisors / cloud platforms : 

1. ESXi to AHV
2. Hyper-V to AHV
3. AWS to AHV 
4. ESXi to ESXi(on Nutanix)  

Nutanix Move Tool version 3.3.x Compatibility

Nutanix Move tool compatibility Matrix:

Till now, Nutanix move tool supports three platforms e.g VMware, Hyper-V, AWS but in future will support more platform with P2V hopefully.

Read also: Nutanix Cluster size Limitation, Scabalibity or Maximums

Nutanix Move Firewall Port List

Nutanix move tool requires firewall ports list must be allowed on external firewall to communicate between VMware vSphere ESXi and Nutanix Move Tool VM.

Nutanix move tool firewall port list requirement:

Requirements Firewall Ports for VMware ESXi Migration:

• Nutnix Move VM must be able to communicate with vCenter Server on port 443.
• ESXi hosts on 902 and 443, and AHV on 9440.
• Allow ports (TCP and UDP) 2049 and 111 between the Nutanix Move network and the AHV CVM network.

You can run the following commands from Move:

admin@move$ nc -zv <vCenter Server IP> 443
------------
admin@move$ nc -uzv <ESXi Host IP> 902
admin@move$ nc -uzv <ESXi Host IP> 443
------------
admin@move$ nc -uzv <Prism IP> 9440

Requirements Firewall Ports for AWS & Hyper-V Migration:

• WinRM-HTTPS: 5986
• WinRM-HTTP: 5985
• RDP: 3389 (only for inbound)
• SSH: 22

Lets explore the more firewall ports

Read also: Nutanix CVM Network Port List for Communication

Full Nutanix Move firewall Port list

Full Nutanix Move tool firewall network port numbers / list used by Nutanix Move components. Use these firewall requirements to configure rules in your external firewall to allow Nutanix Move.

Inbound traffic to Nutanix Move VM

Source : Supported Hypervisors IP Address
Destination : Nutanix Move Tool IP Address

Outbound traffic from Nutanix Move VM

Source : Nutanix Move Tool IP Address
Destination : Supported Hypervisors IP Address

Default Credentials for Nutanix Move ?

Nutanix move VM / Tool default credential for Web console and CLI

Default credentials for Nutanix Move Web Console GUI :
Username : nutanix , Password : nutanix/4u

Default credentials for Nutanix Move CLI : 
Username : admin, Password  :  nutanix/4u

Note: admin user on Move does not have all the major rights so best way is to change the user to root to run the following command:

admin@nutanix-move:~] rs

Read also: Nutanix IPMI Interface Default Credential and IP Address

Supported Guest OSes from AWS Migration

Nutanix Move tool supports a number of common operating systems from AWS cloud platform to Nutanix AHV platfrom. Nutanix has qualified the following 64-bit guest OS versions.

From AWS cloud Fully Supported OSes list:

• Windows Server 2012 R2, 2016
• RHEL 6.8 to 6.10 and 7.3 to 7.5
• CentOS 6.8 to 6.9 and 7.3 to 7.5
• Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04, and 18.04

Supported Guest OSes from Hyper-V Migration

Nutanix Move supports a number of common operating systems from Hyper-v hypervisor to Nutanix AHV.

Note: The Nutanix Move user interface does not display a message or warning during the creation of a migration plan if you are attempting to migrate VMs running on an unsupported guest OS.

• Yes Guest OS is supported for migration.
• NA – Source Guest OS is not supported on Microsoft Hyper-V for given generation.
• NA – Target Guest OS is not supported on AHV.
• Yes ** Generation 2 Guest OS is supported for migration. For Gen-2 VM, during Cutover process, Secure Boot feature is disabled for VM on the added Hyper-V source till cutover is completed.

Note:

Current available versions of AHV don’t support Gen 2 VMs directly. Therefore, during the cutover process, the following command is run on a migrated VM on the target cluster.

For Windows UEFI Mode VMs

Step 1: Power off the Windows VM

Step 2: Run following commands through any Nutanix CVM

A. Get VM_id to run following command

acli vm.get <Windows_VM_Name>

B. Update the boot mode to UEFI

acli vm.update <vm_id>  uefi_boot=True

Step 3: Power on the Windows VM.

For Ubuntu VM – Before Migration

Run the following commands on the source Ubuntu 14 and 16 Generation 2 VMs before migration.

1. sudo bash
2. cd /boot/efi/EFI
3. cp -r ubuntu/ boot
4. cd boot
5. mv shimx64.efi bootx64.efi

I hope it would be helpful to change the legacy mode VM to UEFI mode.

Read also: Nutanix AHV: Windows VM Kernel Memory dump

Download Nutanix Move Tool

You can download the Nutanix Move tool from Nutanix support portal.

Download Latest Nutanix move tool through link: Download Nutanix Move

Download Nutanx AHV through link: Download Nutnaix AHV

Download Nutanix Virtio Driver through link: Download Nutanix Virtio Driver

Conclusion

Nutanix Move tool is very essential tool to do V2V migration from support virtualization platform to Nutanix AHV platform.

Thanks to being with HyperHCI Tech Blog to stay tuned.!