Server Migration Center:Overview of containerization migration feature

Introduction

SMC containerizes servers and business applications through full-copy migration and application migration methods, pushes them to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR), and finally completes application deployment in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK), achieving containerized migration of servers and applications. The following diagram shows the relationship between related product services and the migration process.

1. Install the SMC client on the source server platform.

2. Configure migration settings and start migration. After migration is complete, container images are automatically generated and stored in Container Registry Personal Edition. Both full-copy migration mode and application migration mode are supported.

3. Deploy applications on Container Service for Kubernetes to complete the migration.

Migration scenarios

• Full-copy migration

  Supports containerizing the system and all application data from physical machines/virtual machines/cloud platform servers, generating images, and pushing them to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry. Suitable for system-level disaster recovery scenarios.

• Application migration

  Supports containerizing specific applications from physical machines/virtual machines/cloud platform servers, generating images, and pushing them to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry. Suitable for microservice containerization transformation scenarios.

  Important

  The application migration feature is in the invitational preview stage. Please contact us to submit an application for whitelist access. Supported application versions include the following:

  • Java Tomcat

  • Java Tomee

  • Java JBoss (standalone mode)

  • ASP.NET Core 3.1 and ASP.NET 5/6/7/8 versions

Limits

• Only x86 architecture Linux operating system servers support migration to container images. Supported operating system versions include the following:

  • CentOS

  • Ubuntu

  • RedHat

  • Alibaba Cloud Linux

• The application migration feature requires whitelist access. If needed, please contact us. Supported application versions include the following:

  • Java Tomcat

  • Java TomEE

  • Java JBoss (standalone mode)

  • ASP.NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5/6/7/8 versions

• Only migration to image repositories in Container Registry Personal Edition instances is supported.

• Container migration currently does not support data disk migration. The system automatically excludes the /mnt directory and all data disk mount points. The target disk generated by migration contains only one default partition, and there is no need to adjust the existing partition structure.

  If data disk data needs to be migrated to Alibaba Cloud, you can migrate data through FTP, SCP, manual backup to OSS/NAS, and other methods. For more information, see Choose a file transfer method and Command-line tool ossutil 1.0.

• In application migration mode, do not restart the application process during migration. Changes in the process ID will cause the migration task to fail.

Migration costs

• SMC is a free service, but using Alibaba Cloud ECS resources (creating intermediate instances) during migration will incur a small fee. You can learn about billing details in SMC billing items.

• Container migration saves the generated container images to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry Personal Edition. Personal Edition is designed for individual developers, currently supports some regions, and you can use it for free during the public preview period.

• The specific costs of deploying applications in Container Service for Kubernetes vary depending on the cluster type and cloud product usage.

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Migration guide: Containerized migration