4.1 Planning For Migrating Workloads to Azure

PlateSpin Migrate 12.1 enhances the Web Interface to let you migrate the following Windows and Linux workloads to Microsoft Azure:

Windows:

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2012

  • Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

Linux:

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.1

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.7

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP4

  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP3

NOTE:

  • Migration of Microsoft Azure source workloads to Microsoft Azure target containers is not supported.

  • Migration of Linux workloads to an Azure target is restricted to workloads with only a single NIC.

Consider the following points before you use the PlateSpin Migrate Web Interface to migrate workloads to Azure:

  • Migration of Windows cluster workloads is not supported because Microsoft Azure does not support Windows clusters.

  • Migration of UEFI workloads is not supported.

  • The PlateSpin Migrate Client does not support migration of workloads to Microsoft Azure. You can use only the PlateSpin Migrate Web Interface to migrate the workloads to Microsoft Azure.

  • Test Cutover of workloads is not supported. You can perform only Run Cutover of workloads.

  • PlateSpin Migrate supports Azure VM sizes with up to 64 data disks. For the maximum instance size in a selected Azure Region, Migrate will use one data disk for the OS disk replication in the PlateSpin Replication Environment. After migration, this disk becomes the OS disk, and you can add a data disk.

    Each data disk must have a maximum size of 1TB (1024 GB).

  • Migrate recommends an Azure VM instance size that meets or exceeds the source workload's settings for cores, memory, data disks, and NICs. However, you can choose a smaller or larger instance size based on your requirements for the target workload, as limited by the maximum instance sizes available in the selected Azure Region.

  • The size of the disk created on the Azure VM is the size of the source disk partition plus about 1 GB because of the granularity of available disk sizes on Azure.

  • You need an OS license for the migrated target workload. For Azure target workloads, you must provide Azure with the license information or Microsoft will charge you for the OS license.

  • For each target Azure subscription, you must enable programmatic deployment for the PlateSpin Migrate Replication Environment VM. See Section 4.2, Enabling an Azure Subscription to Deploy the Replication Environment VM.

  • Currently, when the time on the PlateSpin Server goes out of sync, the cutover will fail with a 403 forbidden error. Can we either detect that the root cause is the time problem, and state that as the error message or add that to it - or otherwise build in some sort of very visible warning that the time is out of sync

  • Ensure that the PlateSpin Server host displays the correct time for the time zone it is in. If the time on the PlateSpin Server host is incorrect, the cutover process fails with a 403 forbidden error.

4.1.1 Prerequisites for Migrating Workloads to Azure

PlateSpin Migrate uses the Microsoft Azure Resource Manager for migrating workloads to Microsoft Azure. Before you use PlateSpin Migrate to migrate workloads to Microsoft Azure, ensure that the following cloud access prerequisites are correctly configured and available:

  • A Microsoft Azure Account and a subscription for your account

  • A Client ID required to access Microsoft Azure

  • An Azure Active Directory user created as a contributor for the subscription

  • A Virtual Network with a Subnet different from the default Gateway Subnet

  • The minimum network-related prerequisites for a successful migration are:

    • The source and the target workload must be able to communicate with the PlateSpin Migrate server on port 443. The target workload is the replica of the source workload that will reside in Microsoft Azure.

    • The PlateSpin Migrate server must be able to communicate with the Microsoft Azure API endpoint on port 443.

    • The PlateSpin Migrate server must be able to communicate with the source workloads on the ports that are used for DCOM, WMI, and RPC.

    • The target workload must be able to reach the source workload on port 3725 (default). The direction of this connection can be reversed (source to target), and the port number is configurable. For information about changing the default settings, see Section 2.0, Post-Installation Configuration.

For information about setting up your Azure cloud account to work with PlateSpin Migrate, see PlateSpin Migrate Best Practices for Migrating Windows Workloads to Microsoft Azure on the PlateSpin Migrate Resources Webpage.