A toolkit for your toolkit: 7 learning resources to migrate to OpenShift Virtualization

Organizations around the world have been using virtual machines for decades, often staying with a single vendor because migrating those virtual machines (VMs) from one hypervisor to another can be such a monumental task. Red Hat’s migration toolkit for virtualization (MTV) facilitates the complex task of migrating VMs to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with tools that are easy to use, highly configurable and can be automated to handle even the largest environments.

Here are 7 informative resources to learn how to migrate VMs to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with the toolkit:

1. Introduction to the Migration Toolkit for Virtualization

Get a basic introduction to the toolkit and learn everything you need to get started with our landing page.

The migration toolkit for virtualization provides organizations the ability to move virtualized workloads off of costly legacy hypervisors while developing cloud-native versions of their applications. For legacy and COTS applications, it can be used to seamlessly relocate applications to OpenShift Virtualization, freeing up infrastructure resources that can be put to use in other ways.

The toolkit is available as an operator in all Red Hat OpenShift editions and can easily be configured to communicate with a variety of virtualization platforms. Once the configuration is complete, multiple VMs can be selected for simultaneous migration at a time that is right for you.

Benefits:

• Easy installation, configuration and integration with your existing OpenShift infrastructure
• Support for migrating from virtualization platforms such as VMware vSphere, Red Hat Virtualization, Red Hat OpenStack Services on OpenShift as well as OVA files
• Customization of network and storage resources via resource mapping between the legacy hypervisor and OpenShift Virtualization

2. Migrate virtual machines with Red Hat: Interactive Walkthroughs

These dynamic and engaging interactive videos guide you through each step of migrating a VM from vSphere to OpenShift Virtualization, as well as automating migrations with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. In these guides, you will learn:

• How to configure a migration plan
• How to initiate and monitor a VM migration
• How to use Ansible Automation Platform to automate virtual machine migration
• How to view details and metrics of the migrated virtual machine

3. Effortless VM migration: Streamlining your path to success (Registration required)

This recorded webinar contains information about the migration toolkit for virtualization as well as integration with Red Hat Ansible Automation Platform. In the first part of the webinar, you will learn how to configure a migration toolkit for virtualization provider as well as how to create a migration plan from start to finish.

In the second half of the webinar, you will get an overview of the ways Ansible Automation Platform can help you with not only the automation of VM migrations at scale, but also the process of automating VM backups and Day-2 maintenance and lifecycle management activities.

4. Migrating virtual machines from vSphere to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization with the migration toolkit for virtualization

This blog post walks you through the installation and configuration of the migration toolkit for virtualization. This step-by-step guide provides you all of the information you need to begin quickly migrating your VMs from vSphere to OpenShift Virtualization. Even though this blog post is geared specifically towards migrations from vSphere, the toolkit is simple and flexible enough that the same concepts you will learn here will be applicable to any of the virtualization platforms that it supports.

This blog post will teach you:

• How to install the toolkit in your OpenShift environment
• How to configure a Provider, which represents the source for your VM migrations
• How to create a migration plan that is responsible for migrating your VMs
• How to start, monitor and complete migrations to OpenShift Virtualization

5. Using migration hooks in migration toolkit for virtualization

One helpful feature of the toolkit that can make your migration journey even easier is migration hooks. A migration hook is an Ansible playbook that runs before and/or after a virtual machine migration in the toolkit. The migration hook can be used to alter network configuration in preparation for migration, prepare applications for migration or even interact with vSphere to mark VMs as having been migrated.

This blog post describes how to successfully configure migration hooks and provides key details for creating and configuring migration hooks to run successfully in your migrations.

In this blog post, you will learn:

• What are migration hooks and what they can do
• All of the required configurations for using migration hooks
• How to create migration hooks using examples of real Ansible playbooks
• How to monitor migration hook execution

6. Migration Toolkit for Virtualization: FAQs from the field

This resource-packed blog post contains all of the top questions users may ask before executing a VM migration. Get answers to top questions around the types of migrations the toolkit supports, how to conduct performance testing and how to plan your migration.

7. Not sure where to start? Red Hat Consulting Services can help you every step of the way!

There have been a number of upheavals in the virtualization landscape recently and companies have had to deal with rising licensing costs and vendor lock-in. Breaking the cycle of increasing year-over-year costs can be incredibly difficult when an existing solution is engrained in your organization, but Red Hat Consulting Services can help simplify your VM migration to Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization.

Red Hat’s team of experts will work with you to:

• Assess your environment
• Establish a migration strategy
• Build a solid foundation for your virtual infrastructure
• Migrate your workloads

You will realize even more value with a Red Hat Technical Account Manager, who will be there to help you evolve as your organization continues working with OpenShift Virtualization. Your Technical Account Manager is your single point of contact, your trusted advisor and an advocate for your needs inside Red Hat. Leveraging Red Hat’s competence and experience will ensure that your VM migration project is fast, stable and effective.

Simplify your virtual machine migration experience

Migrating your VMs from legacy hypervisors to OpenShift Virtualization can appear daunting, but with this toolkit of resources, you will be prepared to kickstart your migration journey with confidence.

Try OpenShift Virtualization and the migration toolkit yourself with our no-cost trial today!