Veeam Replication from VMware to Hyper-V

[madshark]

Hi,

I have a vCenter 6.7 solution and I'd like to migrate VMs to Azure Stack HCI (21H2). Can Veeam replication be used to replicate VMs from VMWare to Hyper-V and to convert / migrate them?

I have tried it on a lab with Veeam version 11 and cannot find this configuration option, I only see the option to setup a replication job to VMWare from VMWare and I can't select my Hyper-V Cluster Hosts as the Destination. I can't find anything in the documentation either and so posting here in hope of a definitive answer and in case I am missing something.

Many thanks

[Mildur]

Hi Lee

There is no direct replication between different hypervisor types.
But you can restore your vmware backups to a hyperv host with Instant VM Recovery.

Azure stack HCI is supported for this scenario. You need Veeam V11a for your HCI Build.

This video shows you how it is done (restore starts at 2:00):
https://veeam.wistia.com/medias/8vpkouw0wa

[madshark]

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have tested Instant Recovery and it works really well and converts VMware to Hyper-V nicely, but I did hit bit of a show stopper (for me) in that there is no PowerShell cmdlet to script up the process. There is a Posh cmdlet the other way - Hyper-V to VMware - and in another forum post I was told this might be included in the next release (v12)?

With a lot of VMs it's going to be a laborious task to only use the GUI to perform the Instant Recoveries. Shame as it's a fantastic feature. I guess I'll just have to wait until v12.

Out of interest, is there any kind of in guest replication possible like if you installed the Veeam agent within the guest VM itself can that offer any additional recovery options of direct replication?

Regards

[Mildur]

With V11a you can do Multi-VM Instant Recovery.
No need to start a instant recovery session for each vm alone. Does this help you?

Yes, there was another topic where someone from veeam has confirmed that there will be optimization in V12.

If you use a veeam Agent inside the vmware, you would also need to create a backup and do a instant recovery session. Veeam can only replicate between same hypervisors.

[madshark]

Great tip thanks, maybe Mutli-VM Recovery will indeed help and make the process at least viable for me and I can test this.

I guess the main thing to consider in that scenario is that all the VMs in recovery will be booting from the Veeam backup repository so need to consider bandwidth and underlying storage performance on the repo, and test how many concurrent recoveries the infrastructure will handle.

It's going to be a challenge matching the selected VMs for recovery with the ones to Shut down in vCenter, then manually performing a final incremental backup, then kicking off the Instant Recovery. Maybe I can script the final inc backup part and then have the restore ready on a second console? Sincerely hoping v12 does have that Posh cmdlet!

Again, thanks for your help.

[Mildur]

Your welcome.

You could script a shutdown of the VM's, then an incremental backup. Then start the IR Session manually for all the processed VM's.

I guess the main thing to consider in that scenario is that all the VMs in recovery will be booting from the Veeam backup repository so need to consider bandwidth and underlying storage performance on the repo, and test how many concurrent recoveries the infrastructure will handle.

If you can get a maintenance windows with a downtime of your services, it should be ok. But yes, if the server must be online, Instant Recovery can be tricky if the hardware and network does not provide the necessary performance.

[GabesVirtualWorld]

Hi,

I have a vCenter 6.7 solution and I'd like to migrate VMs to Azure Stack HCI (21H2). Can Veeam replication be used to replicate VMs from VMWare to Hyper-V and to convert / migrate them?

I have tried it on a lab with Veeam version 11 and cannot find this configuration option, I only see the option to setup a replication job to VMWare from VMWare and I can't select my Hyper-V Cluster Hosts as the Destination. I can't find anything in the documentation either and so posting here in hope of a definitive answer and in case I am missing something.

Many thanks

Be aware of a CBT bug in Hyper-V 2019 !!! There is a very long forum thread here about Hyper-V 2019 performance caused by enabling CBT.