Achieve seamless virtual machine migration to Red Hat Openshift Virtualization

[ServicesExperts]

By Kanti Jadia, Senthil Kumar, and Shohei Maruyama, HPE Services

Today, many enterprises face challenges and concerns about their platforms, particularly in the area of virtualization technology. In our previous post, we explained how cloud native computing can enhance your virtualization strategy using KubeVirt, which can help customers efficiently run their existing virtual machines.

Despite the significant interest and popularity of KubeVirt, customers have expressed numerous concerns. One concern is migration. However, a joint validation of KubeVirt by HPE and Red Hat has unveiled a smooth, secure migration approach.

Simplifying IT modernization with OpenShift virtualization and the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization

Red Hat OpenShift offers a unique migration solution by enabling the seamless integration of virtual machines (VMs) and containers into a unified platform with OpenShift Virtualization and the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization (MTV). Through the joint validation between HPE and Red Hat, we explore how enterprise workloads can be smoothly migrated to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization on top of HPE mission-critical SAN-based enterprise IT environment through MTV.

Introduction to MTV

As organizations modernize their IT infrastructure, the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization simplifies moving workloads from traditional hypervisors like VMware to OpenShift Virtualization. MTV is an open-source solution designed to address the complexities of migration, offering automation, scalability, and minimal downtime.

Key benefits of MTV include:

• Automation: Reduce manual effort with pre-defined workflows
• Flexibility: Support for migrating large-scale VM deployments
• Minimized downtime: Ensure workloads remain available during migration
• Integrated with OpenShift: Works seamlessly with OpenShift Virtualization for a consistent experience
• Simplified transition: Move VMs without refactoring applications immediately

OpenShift Virtualization with MTV on an HPE mission-critical SAN-based environment creates a powerful solution for modernizing IT infrastructure by:

• Unifying workload management: OpenShift Virtualization consolidates VMs and containers into a single platform, enabling centralized management and orchestration. This simplifies operations and reduces the complexity of maintaining separate infrastructure for legacy and modern workloads.
• Streamlining migration: MTV automates the transition of workloads from traditional hypervisors like VMware into OpenShift. By automating VM discovery, resource mapping, and, data transfer, MTV eliminates the challenges of manual migration.
• High performance with mission-critical availability: Mission-critical grade IO performance and high availability for enterprise IT workloads, which is crucial for enterprises even with minimal disruptions and downtime, can lead to significant business losses and regulatory compliance impacts.
• Accelerating modernization: Once workloads are migrated to OpenShift Virtualization, organizations can start modernizing their applications by leveraging OpenShift’s container orchestration capabilities. This hybrid approach allows businesses to innovate without abandoning critical legacy systems.

Learnings and lessons from joint technical validation

The migration of workloads in the joint technical validation environment was successfully conducted using MTV. Here are a few lessons learned from the technical validations of the migration performed by HPE and Red Hat.

• Comprehensive assessment and design: A comprehensive assessment and design of source and target workloads and environments is essential to identify dependencies, compatibility, and performance requirements prior to migration, focusing on network and storage. It is critical for successful migration and consistent user experiences post-migration due to the architectural shift from a virtualized environment to a cloud-native computing environment.
• Migration resource optimization: Sufficient resources and optimization of worker node resource usage are crucial for the mass migration of workloads with MTV from an IT resource point of view. Since one session requires a sizeable amount of resources, proper resource planning for both source and target environments is essential. If the available resources do not meet the forecasted resource consumption, it is crucial to optimize resource allocation by utilizing live migration functionality to shift workloads to a different Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization worker node, ensuring seamless migration and optimal performance.
• Acceleration of migration performance: During a series of different migration scenarios conducted in this technical validation, a few migration performance improvement tips were observed. One key improvement is the use of the VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit, which is available from the Broadcom site. It is available on vCenter and accelerates and enhances I/O performance using the VirtIO driver. The validation shows performance of 1 VM migration with 100 GB disk size, 4 CPUs, and 16 GB memory improved from 2.0 hours to 5 minutes. Improvements in migration performance can be made by applying such tips.

HPE Services can assist in your virtualization journey with Kubernetes

HPE Services can help you seamlessly migrate enterprise workloads from virtualized environments to a KubeVirt-based platform. This can be achieved through comprehensive migration planning, strategic design, execution, and post-migration operations based on validated best practices from Red Hat and HPE Services.

HPE Container Adoption - VM Migration Service facilitates a smooth transition from traditional virtualized environments to containerized workloads within the OpenShift Virtualization ecosystem. It enables organizations to migrate existing virtual machines to OpenShift, unlocking the benefits of a unified platform supporting containers and VMs.

We help ensure seamless migration by leveraging automated tools and industry best practices to minimize downtime and reduce complexity. It empowers businesses to modernize legacy applications, optimize resource utilization, and enhance scalability while maintaining critical workload continuity.

By adopting OpenShift Virtualization, organizations can achieve greater flexibility, streamline operations, and position themselves for future growth in a cloud-native environment.

To learn more, please read our HPE Cloud Native Computing Services - Container Adoption solution brief.

Learn more about advisory and professional services from HPE Services.

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Meet the HPE Bloggers

Kanti Jadia is a DevOps and cloud native computing solutions architect who joined HPE in July 2018. He has 20+ years of experience with consulting and corporate IT roles in various enterprise companies, including Red Hat, NetApp, Oracle, and Arrow Electronics. Kanti has experience in implementing cloud native software like Docker, Kubernetes, and OpenShift in Fortune companies. His main areas of interest are automation, DevOps, and cloud native technologies.

Senthil Kumar is a chief solution architect who has been with HPE since July 2022. He has strong experience with private and public clouds and containerization platforms. Senthil started his career in 2011 as a Linux administrator, where he gained experience working with Linux and VMware. He has also worked with Intel, Wipro, HPE, Hexaware, Singtel, DBS, and Govtech, where he acquired experience working with private and public cloud, VMC, AWS, K8s, OpenShift, CICD pipelines, monitoring, and logging.

Shohei Maruyama is the director of the Cloud and Platform Services Segment in HPE Advisory and Professional Services. He is responsible for the company’s cloud platform and application modernization service business including strategic advisory services, design, implementation, and migration globally. He also assists with customers' digital transformation journeys, bringing innovation and optimization to their enterprise IT. Shohei has introduced new methodologies and solutions such as cloud-native computing and multi-cloud management solutions. Under his leadership, the cloud solution business in HPE Advisory and Professional Service has consistently expanded year over year.

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