Hyper-V convert on server with cifs share datastore

[jcleverley]

Greetings,

I'm trying to convert some 2012 R2 VMs.  The physical servers use datastores on various NetApp arrays and they are accessed via a CIFS share.  The environment is ESXi 6.7.  When I run the stand-alone installer (6.2) on one of the Hyper-V servers, it fails in 1 of 2 ways depending on the credentials.

1.  If I connect to the server as administrator point to an offline vm on the share, it errors out being unable to obtain hardware information.

2.  If I connect using other credentials for accounts in the administrators group, I get permission denied.  This appears to be a UAC issue and is not surprising.

The problem with this is the local administrator does not have rights to the share even though it is full control from Everyone.  This is because NetApp considers Everyone to be Authenticated Users in the domain which a local administrator account is not.  It is a test environment with base builds so we are not worried about the obvious security hole for full control.

Is there a way to do this using the stand-alone convert on the servers?

I've also been experimenting with the StarWind Converter.  I was able to get converted vmdk files and they show up in vcenter, but neither will start up.  No disk shows up.  I did not see the second file I was expecting to do the import.

Any help on the best way to quickly and cleanly get Hyper-V in would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jeff

[scott28tt]

Moderator: Moved to Converter Standalone

[DCasota]

From your writings, the physical servers are installed with Hyper-V and you try to convert on top of Hyper-V each VM, right?

Have a look to the release notes (see caveats and limitations) of VMware vCenter Converter Standalone VMware vCenter Converter Standalone 6.2.0.1 Release Notes . You may find some additional findings at VMware Knowledge Base and VMware Knowledge Base . Make a 'Non-Hyper-V-VMs with conversion impacts' list.

Installing VMware vCenter Converter Standalone on each Active Directory Member Server with disabling conversion impacts (as example Windows Services) should be fine to start an online conversion.

From a production perspective, a P2V conversion of Domain Controllers has most sensitive hardware-related impacts. Installing a DC VM on top ESXi 6.7, synchronizing it with the DC VM on top of Hyper-V, imho, it shoud lead to a safe best-of-breed-conversion journey.

[jcleverley]

DCasota,

I'm not certain what you mean by "convert on top of Hyper-V each volume".

I installed the converter software on the physical Hyper-V server because it is Windows and has access to the VM images.  I'm not trying to do any type of conversion of the physical system at all.  They physical servers also have some space available locally.  I expect we will do all conversions of the systems while they are offline.

The only conversion I've been able to do is to copy the offline VM folder to the local drive, and run the converter as a "local" server.  At that point, the administrator user works fine. 

We also have some linux KVMs that are housed on the NetApp storage.  I'm expecting I'll have trouble using the administrator account to try and convert those also.  I'm still working on that piece.

Thanks,

Jeff    

[IRIX201110141]

You may consider to install the Converter INTO the Hyper-V VMs, not on the Hyper-VM,  which you wanna to convert into a VMware VM.

As i havent touch the Converter for years.... is converting vhxd (Hyper-V VMs) directly possible because you have it install the converter on top of the Hyper-V?

Regards,
Joerg

[jcleverley · Accepted solution]

I don't think installing the software on the VMs would work as desired.  The .vhdx files are not there.   I'm finding the VMware documentation confusing and sometimes contradictory.  The converter says it will only run if the VM is offline.  There is an online option that seems to work but I'll need to test more.

The online creation seemed to work, but I would expect EVERY application would need to be closed, etc, when you create the image.

The offline will convert the .vhdx for an offline VM IF the VM is stored on the local disks of the machine you are running it on.  This is inconvenient when you have your VMs stored on remote datastores.  You have to offline the VM, copy it to the local Windows system with the converter, then convert it and save it the the VMware datastore location.  It's not a particularly graceful way to do this.  We will have to do most of the VMs at the same time requiring a considerable outage in a factory environment. 

I'll mark this as answered as it appears I have 2 ways of getting the Windows VMs functional in VMware.  Now it's off to figure out how to get linux KVM images imported 🙂

Thanks,

Jeff