Oracle Cloud Migrations is an automated tool designed to facilitate the migration of workloads from VMware environments to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). By understanding both VMware and OCI native constructs and services, it ensures a smooth and efficient migration process. In this blog, we will highlight technical and business considerations to guide you through your migration journey to Oracle Cloud.
Oracle Cloud Migrations following five modules that enable migration:
- Discovery
- Inventory
- Assessment and Planning
- Replication
- Execution
Pre-Requisites for Oracle Cloud Migrations
A source environment represents an on-premises environment (outside of OCI), such as an on-premises datacenter with VMware vCenter deployment.
Install a remote agent appliance
The Oracle Cloud Migrations discovery and replication capabilities use the remote agent appliance to automatically collect the metadata of virtual machines in an external environment and replicate the virtual machine data disks from an external environment to OCI.
Register a remote agent appliance
Register and verify the remote agent appliance in the VMware external environment.
Create agent dependencies for an environment on OCI
To enable remote agent appliance operations, agent dependencies must be added to a source environment as third-party library dependencies to the remote agent appliance.
You must add the agent dependencies using the Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK).
Create an asset source
Asset discovery allows identification and metadata collection for the VMs from the external environment and representation of these and relevant metadata in the inventory assets to facilitate the migration process.
Create a discovery work request
After creating an asset source, run external asset discovery.
View inventory assets
An inventory contains a collection of assets and associated metadata. This data is collected during external asset discovery. You can browse the discovered assets and start planning the migration process.
Architecture
This reference architecture describes connectivity from OCB agent to vCenter and Oracle Cloud.
Discovery Methods
Automated discovery and manual asset import are two methods used by the Cloud Migrations service to build the migration inventory.
The Oracle Cloud Migrations replication function running on the remote agent appliance depends on the appropriate VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit (VDDK) agent to perform the snapshot operations on the VMware VM disk.
Understanding VM Replication
The replication plugin in Oracle Cloud Migrations manages the replication of source asset snapshots from the source environment to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
About Replication Bucket
Snapshots of source assets (boot and block volumes) are stored in the replication bucket, which is an intermediary storage location.
Managing Remote Agent Appliances
A remote agent appliance in Oracle Cloud Migrations gathers metadata from virtual machines (VMs) in a remote environment and replicates it.
The process of deploying a remote agent appliance involves installing and registering it. Once registered with the source environment, the agent establishes a continuous secure connection to OCI through periodic secure token exchanges. These tokens are regularly updated. If the appliance fails to refresh its authentication token, it disconnects, requiring manual re-registration via its console. The appliance also features a diagnostic tool to troubleshoot network connectivity issues or communication problems with OCI.
When migrating virtual machines from an external environment to multiple OCI regions, follow these steps:
Create a distinct source environment for each OCI region.
Deploy at least one remote agent appliance in each target region.
Once registered and active, each remote agent appliance initiates two plugins: discovery and replication. The discovery plugin employs environment-specific connectors to locate VMware virtual machines in the source environment. Meanwhile, the replication plugin oversees the replication of snapshots of source assets from the source environment to OCI.
For enhanced redundancy and replication speed, multiple remote agent appliances can be deployed within a single source environment.
Grouping, Planning, and Pricing
After creating the asset inventory, you can group your assets into migration projects based on business needs. You can then create migration plans based on your groups, adding assets to the plan and defining strategies for each plan. The pricing model is transparent, allowing you to plan and manage your performance in OCI.
Benefits Of Using ORACLE Cloud Migrations
- Seamless Transition: Oracle Cloud Migrations ensures a smooth transition of your VMware workloads to OCI, reducing the complexities typically associated with migrations.
- Efficiency: By automating key workflows, the service saves time and resources, allowing your IT team to focus on other critical tasks.
- Reliability: Oracle Cloud’s robust infrastructure provides a reliable destination for your workloads, ensuring high availability and performance.
- Cost-Effective: By optimizing resource allocation and minimizing downtime, Oracle Cloud Migrations helps control migration costs and ensures a cost-effective move to the cloud.
- Scalability: OCI’s flexible infrastructure allows you to scale your resources up or down based on your changing business needs, providing long-term benefits post-migration.
Oracle Cloud Migrations simplifies the migration process with its automated discovery, comprehensive asset inventory management, and transparent pricing. By following these steps, you can ensure a smooth transition to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Whether using automated discovery for a thorough VM identification or manually importing assets for tailored migration plans, OCI provides the necessary tools and support for a successful migration.
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