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Microsoft Virtualization Migration Options

Microsoft

Jul 11, 2024

Happy July everyone! Brandon Wilson here today to talk to you a bit about virtualization migration options, and the recent change in landscape for it…

First, let me say that this is not intended to be a deep-dive into technical aspects of the migration process, but rather a high level of how we can assist you, and what products you may want to migrate to, and why… (I will hold the door open for potential more in-depth technical articles). So, let's get started!

What we are seeing in the field, is a change in landscape that is bringing Hyper-V, Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack HCI), Azure virtual machines, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Windows Admin Center, and Azure Arc front and center for customers. As a result of using competitor virtualization products for an extended amount of time, many companies tend to lack expertise within their current staff and can use a little help to hit the ground running (and even get longer term assistance). Even with similar skillsets in play, migrating to a new product can be an entirely different experience. While many of the underlying concepts of the virtualization platforms are very similar, there is a difference in terminology in addition to knowledge gaps that can confuse the process.

I have the tremendous opportunity (or privilege rather) to lead a field team tackling these efforts, working alongside the PG and our support teams to help ensure customer success in these areas. Since I have this conversation many times a day, I wanted to give a rundown of the options, and when/why you might want to consider them. If you’ve had this conversation with me, one of my team, or one of our awesome Program Managers “in person” already, then you have an idea of what I will be covering in this blog (and there are certainly many of you). If you have not yet had this conversation, please reach out to your CSAM(s) and ask them to contact me, and we will get things rolling for you!

Let’s talk about Azure Arc first, as it can help you understand how to better futureproof your on-premises environment. Azure Arc provides you with the ability to manage servers and services outside of Azure, to include Windows and Linux, Kubernetes clusters, Azure data services, SQL Server, and virtual machines/hosts (to include VMWare). Azure Arc provides a hook into VMWare (vSphere), SCVMM, Azure Local, and Hyper-V hosts (Windows Servers) and virtual machines from Azure.

Additionally, if you are planning to manage your Hyper-V datacenter using SCVMM after migrating, Azure Arc enabled SCVMM allows you to manage your VMs in a self-service fashion and secure, govern, monitor and patch your machines using Azure management services. In addition, you can build your own automation and self-service VM management pipelines using the Azure APIs, SDKs, Terraform and Bicep templates provided via Arc-enabled SCVMM.

All of these hooks, in turn allow you to prepare your environment for the future state, both from an infrastructure AND security perspective (MDE, Sentinel, RBAC…honestly there’s some serious advantages).

Image source: Governance, security, and compliance baseline for Azure Arc-enabled servers - Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn

From a cost perspective, the main/core control plane features necessary are FREE. While some components to involve a cost, for the purposes of this article, I am really only concerned with the following:

It’s also important to note that some upcoming features in Windows Server 2025 will require Azure Arc, such as hotpatching.

Now, our options!...

AVS (Azure VMWare Solution)

NOTE: Microsoft has partnered with Broadcom for license portability (see: Microsoft and Broadcom to support license portability for VMware Cloud Foundation on Azure VMware Solution | Microsoft Azure Blog)

What is it?

Azure VMWare Solution (AVS) offers a “private cloud” hosted in an Azure datacenter that makes use of a dedicated bare-metal Azure infrastructure to host your VMWare infrastructure.

Allows for up to 16 hosts per cluster, with VMWare features including vCenter, vSphere, vSAN, and NSX
- Microsoft offers VBD (Value Based Deliverables) for these efforts to help you understand and land your migration from on-premises VMWare to Azure VMWare Solution

Reasons to migrate to AVS:

Requires less upskilling than is potentially necessary for a transition to SCVMM and Hyper-V, Azure Stack, or potentially even Azure VMs
Locks you into pricing that is not impacted by other licensing cost inflation for up to 5 years (via Azure reservations). NOTE: AVS reservations are NOT subject to the newer Azure reservations exchange policies!
AVS can be purchased with VMWare Cloud Foundation (VCF) subscriptions included (no purchase through 3^rd parties necessary)
Offers BYOL (bring your own licensing) coverage
Lift and shift from on-premises to Azure VMWare Solution, helping to potentially lower costs in key areas. Ask your account team about the Migration Factory (it can have some great incentives!).
DR (disaster recovery), whether side by side with efforts to migrate to other Microsoft products, or for your current on-premises solutions
- Even if you are primarily moving to Hyper-V, Azure Stack, or even Azure virtual machines, if you will continue to have a VMWare footprint post-migration, it could make sense to evaluate AVS as a potential replacement for your on-premises VMWare infrastructure, and capitalize on reuse of any additional hardware you may have left afterwards.

Reference links:

Azure Virtual Machines, SaaS, and PaaS

What is it?

Modern infrastructure that allows you to select from selectable sizing of virtual machines that allow for the specifications you need
Allows for a potential of serverless solutions to take the everyday maintenance tasks off your plate, and offload them to Microsoft, allowing your team to focus on more important tasks
Provides you a direct move to a future state, allowing for the flexibility that Azure can offer, whether that be performance monitoring, configuration management, and ongoing development of applications

Reasons to migrate to Azure Virtual Machines:

Ability to save on costs via reservations over numerous resources
Ability to save on costs via savings plans for compute resources
Ability to utilize your current licenses for Azure Hybrid Benefits (AHB)
Ability to use Azure policy for governance
Ability to use Azure Advisor to get recommendations based on the well-architected framework to optimize your infrastructure holistically
Take advantage of burstable and spot virtual machines where possible to maximize your savings potential for those workloads that don’t need a constant high resource virtual machine
Provides access to multiple offerings from Microsoft, to include assessments, landing zones, workshops, and more…

Reference links:

Azure Local

What is it?

NOTE: You must currently have, or to lease/purchase HCI compatible hardware (Azure Local Solutions | Catalog)

A software defined approach, to include hypervisor, software defined storage, virtualized networking, and provides a hybrid approach (requires Azure subscription

Image source: Azure Local solution overview - Azure Local | Microsoft Learn

Dual supportability from Microsoft and hardware manufacturers (the same can be said for Hyper-V as well)
Hypervisor based on the potentially familiar Hyper-V compute resources
Allows for various usages, to include virtualization of Windows and Linux virtual machines, Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD), Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)

Reasons to migrate to Azure Local:

If you already own HCI compatible hardware
- If you own a mix of HCI compatible hardware and non-compatible hardware, it may make the most sense to mix and match your migration options.
Azure services include monitoring, backup, site recovery, and more
Accessible through Azure portal, ARM, Bicep, Azure CLI, and other tools
Arc enabled by default, allowing you to modernize and prepare for the future of your infrastructure

Reference links:

Hyper-V (Windows Server)

What is it?

A built-in feature in Windows Server versions that needs little introduction…

Provides a method for Windows Server to provide virtualization for virtual machines

When combined with the power of the System Center suite (SCVMM, SCOM, SCORCH), Hyper-V offers a rich feature set comparable to competitor virtualization products
Provides a method of future proofing your environment via Azure Arc, and optionally, migration to Azure virtual machines, SaaS, or PaaS services.

Reasons to migrate to Hyper-V on Windows Server:

Hyper-V on Windows Server may make sense if:

You have recently purchased hardware or have invested a lot into your on-premises infrastructure that you cannot write off at the moment.
You are using a SAN for your storage (Azure Stack HCI will not be an option)
Your storage and compute needs grow independently
Unable to modernize currently, whether thats due to hardware investments, political landscapes, regulatory compliance, application development, or any other current blocker
You need an OS with long-term support (up to 10 years)
You have large cluster requirements (17+ nodes)
Isolated environment/unable to connect to Azure

Reference links:

Now let’s talk about management options…

System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) + System Center suite

An equivalent to 3^rd party virtualization management methods. This includes being able to include Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI, and even VMWare infrastructures to simplify management
Provides a method to simplify migration to Hyper-V or Azure Stack
Requires System Center licensing, with SCVMM having cores per server charge.
Can be Arc enabled to get self-serve VM management capabilities and unlock Azure management services.
Azure Arc enabled SCVMM allows to build automation and self-service pipelines using Python, Java, JavaScript, Go and .NET SDKs, Terraform and Bicep templates, Azure REST APIs, Azure CLI, and Azure PowerShell.

Reference links:

Azure Arc (I talked about this a bit above, so won’t go into this much)

An integrated method of management for Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI, Azure virtual machines
Provides for extended functionality all areas of the well-architected framework and cloud adoption framework
Allows you to manage on-premises servers and extend functionality into the cloud

Reference links:

Windows Admin Center

No additional costs (included with Windows Server license)
Allows you to manage on-premises servers and extend functionality into the cloud
Can be installed on a workstation (Windows 11), or on a server to allow it to act as a gateway for management from any workstation

Reference links:

Azure Portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI, etc

When it comes to management of Azure virtual machines, you have multiple options, to include the portal, PowerShell, Azure CLI, and any other interface that allows you to manage Azure resources!

How can we assist, and what to prepare for…

NOTE: We are currently only able to provide assistance with Unified or Premier customers. Please reach out to your CSAM (Customer Success Account Manager) and ask them to reach out to me directly for more information, and to get my team engaged to assist!

Let’s briefly cover how we can assist…

Within our CSA Global Delivery organization (which offers assistance with both Azure and on-premises technologies), we can offer virtualization migration assistance by:

Determining the initial needs and scope, and begin the efforts alongside you in order to better determine the efforts that may be needed to complete the project
Review of your existing virtualization environment and identification of the migration options that would work best for your infrastructure
Assistance with any proof of concept/pilot for Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI, AVS, Azure virtual machines, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM), Azure Arc, or Windows Admin Center
Assistance with the design/architecture for planning your pilot and future infrastructure
Assistance with the rollout of required components (ex: SCVMM, Hyper-V, and Azure Arc)
Provide guidance and knowledge transfer along the way while handholding your efforts.
- We don’t do the migration for you (ie; “hands on keyboard”), we help you along in the process, providing you with knowledge transfer, helping to ensure best practices are being implemented, etc.
- Due to the significant potential differences from customer to customer, along with the time it would take to develop individual architecture documentation, we do not provide individual runbooks or custom architecture documentation. We will, however, provide guidance for your own development of this documentation, in addition to helping you deploy your pilot, and get through your migration.
Provide dedicated resources (ie; Enhanced Designated Engineering package) both for assistance during your migration efforts, but also afterwards to assist you with your new infrastructure proactively.
- Pricing, because given the situation our customers are in, cost matters….
  - In most cases, we work off your existing Unified (or Premier) contract hours and credits, and we will typically start with a bundle of hours to get the ball rolling. Depending on your needs, the assistance needed may grow beyond the initial hours (it typically does).
- We can also work with any partners you may have helping you in the migration process!

Contributors: Brandon Wilson (VMWare Migration vTeam Lead (Principal CSA)), Elden Christensen (Principal Group PM Manager), Dan Cuomo (Principal PM Lead), Jeff Woolsey (Principal PM Manager), Karthik K R (Product Manager), and Pradeep Gandluru (Principal Group SW Engineering Manager).

Updated Feb 03, 2025

Version 6.0

BrandonWilson