Virtualization technology has much improved the work efficiency of IT environment so that companies are glad to deploy virtual environment.
There are many excellent virtualization solutions but companies often use only one virtualization platform at the beginning. As time goes on, more virtualization solutions are used by companies. Another virtualization solution is added to IT environment as a complement to the old solution or it directly replaces the old solution.
Why convert VMDK to KVM?
VMware vSphere is an excellent virtualization solution which captures thousands of users because of its powerful performance. KVM is also becoming more and more popular. If you have two kinds of hypervisors in IT environment, you need V2V converter.
The components of virtual machine are similar to those of physical machine. When you clone a physical machine, you can clone the entire hard disk but can you directly add the virtual disk to another VM? If the two VMs are on the same virtualization platform, it is often supported. If they are on different platforms, you need to do some conversion jobs to make sure the virtual disk can work in the other environment.
For instance, in VMware environment, the file system is VMFS and the format of virtual hard disk is VMDK, while in KVM, it is raw or qcow2 format that is often used. Therefore, to migrate VMware virtual machine to KVM, you need to convert virtual disk format.
Some users will extract the VMDK file and convert it to the format which can work in KVM environment and then import the VM to KVM. In fact, the process can be simplified, you don't have to do the conversion job by yourself during migrating VMware to KVM.
How to migrate VM from VMware to KVM platform with virt-v2v?
Virt-v2v is a tool for converting the VM on other platforms to make it work on KVM. You need to install it on the host and then use commands to move VM. No additional process for dealing with VMDK file is needed.
In this section, the example is moving VM from VMware vSphere to Red Hat Virtualization.
Install virt-v2v on host (centos 7.2)
1. KVM needs the support of CPU (Intel VMX or AMD SVM). Before installing KVM, check whether virtualization is supported before installing KVM.
# egrep'^flags.*(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo
If there is related information displayed, it means that this CPU support virtualization. Virtualization needs to be enabled in BIOS.
2. Install KVM and the necessary packages
# yum installkvm kmod-kvm qemu kvm-qemu-img virt-viewer virt-manager libvirt libvirt-pythonpython-virtinst
or# yum groupinstall KVM
Check whether KVM module is installed. Type the command below. If two module is displayed, it means installation has been completed
# lsmod | grep kvm
3. Install virt-v2v
#yum install virt-v2v
Use virt-v2v to move VM
To move VM from VMware vCenter server to Red Hat Virtualization, use the command:
virt-v2v -ic vpx://vcenter.example.com/Datacenter/esxi vmware_guest
-o rhv -os rhv.nfs:/export_domain --network rhvm
Use Vinchin Backup & Recovery to move VMware to KVM
Virt-v2v is a good tool for KVM VM migration but the migration process is not so clear for users. You can have a better experience with Vinchin Backup & Recovery.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery is a professional virtual environment backup and disaster recovery solution for both small business and enterprise. VMs can be backed up agentlessly and then easily moved to another server. Cross-platform VM migration is supported on 15+ mainstream virtualization platforms including VMware, Proxmox, Red Hat Virtualization, oVirt, OLVM, etc. You can move VM from VMware to KVM or from KVM to VMware as you wish (Native KVM migation requires agent installation).
The migration process in Vinchin Backup & Recovery is more friendly to users than that in virt-v2v. All the operations will be easily completed with a migration wizard in a user-friendly web console.
For instance, if you wish to migrate VMware VMs to Proxmox, just connect both the VMware and Proxmox to Vinchin, perform a backup from VMware and use the backups to create a restore job to Proxmox, and Vinchin will then complete the cross platform restore process automatically.
1. Select the VMware VM backup
2. Select the target Proxmox host
3. Select the strategies
4. Submit the job
Want to experience how convenient it is to move VM in Vinchin Backup & Recovery? You can deploy Vinchin backup system in your virtual environment with a 60-day full-featured free trial. Click the button to get the installation package. It takes only a few minutes to deploy the software in your IT environment.
Except for cross-platform recovery, Vinchin Backup & Recovery has many other brilliant features for virtual environment maintenance like Instant Recovery. The failed VM can be recovered from its backup in 15 seconds on a pointed server. Instant Recovery and Cross-Platform Migration will help you greatly reduce downtime in data center.
VMware to KVM Conversion FAQs
1. What file format should you convert the vmdk for KVM?
Raw and qcow2 are the most popular virtual disk formats of KVM VM.
2. Are there any common issue during conversion?
The major issues include incorrect format detection, disk corruption and performance issue. You might not be able to find the exclusive technical support team of qemu-img so you can try another migration solution like Vinchin Backup & Recovery.
3. Do you need to modify the VM configuration after converting VMDK to KVM?
Generally, you can modify the configuration when importing the converted virtual disk to a KVM host.
Conclusion
VM migration is a necessary skill for IT administrators. Since virtual machine has virtual disk, is it necessary to convert the VMDK file to migrate VMware to KVM. This method might work, but you can also use virt-v2v and commands to migrate to KVM.
Vinchin Backup & Recovery provides an easier solution to help you migrating VM to KVM without manually converting VMDK image. Don't miss the free trial.
