Cloud Backup:Feature overview

Introduction

The VMware VM migration feature of Cloud Backup migrates on-premises VMware VMs to Alibaba Cloud in batches without installing a client on the VMs. Deploy a migration gateway in your VMware environment to start a secure, reliable migration.

Key benefits

• Agentless

  No client installation is required on the VM operating system. Deploy a migration gateway VM in your VMware environment to migrate VMs to the cloud.

• Incremental migration

  Cloud Backup supports scheduled incremental migration. It uses native VMware APIs to retrieve block-level incremental data, which greatly shortens the switchover window.

• Strong data consistency

  Migration preserves data consistency across all disks on the VM. This is especially important for VMs that run database applications or store large numbers of files.

• Easy validation

  After the first full migration, verify at any time whether the ECS instance starts correctly and whether the data is consistent. This builds confidence before the final switchover.

• Simple operations

  Manage, migrate, and batch-migrate VMs from a centralized console. After you configure a migration task, click Switch in the Alibaba Cloud Management Console to complete the migration. No additional operations are required.

How it works

In the vCenter where you perform backups, deploy and activate a Cloud Backup VMware migration gateway by using the Open Virtualization Appliance (OVA) template provided by Cloud Backup. Each vCenter environment requires only one gateway, but you can deploy multiple gateways for large-scale environments. The gateway migrates VMs according to the migration plan.

During migration, the migration gateway creates a snapshot of the specified VM and reads the snapshot data by using the official VMware SDK. After deduplication and compression, the gateway uploads the data to the cloud. It then creates a migration agent ECS instance based on the migration plan and writes the data to an ECS cloud disk. For scheduled incremental migrations, the gateway creates another snapshot of the VM, retrieves the incremental data, and writes it to the cloud disk. After migration is complete, Cloud Backup starts the destination ECS instance.

Cloud Backup supports migration to Alibaba Cloud over the Internet, a VPN, or a leased line. For Internet-based migrations, the migration gateway requires only Internet access. No IP address needs to be exposed to the Internet.

Procedure

The following procedure describes how to back up and migrate VMware VMs using the Cloud Backup console.

1. Activate Cloud Backup

   You are not charged for activating Cloud Backup. You are charged for migrating VMware VMs to the cloud. For more information, see Billing methods and billable items.

2. Create a migration gateway

   You can create a migration gateway in the Cloud Backup console. A migration gateway helps you back up and restore data.

3. Install and activate the gateway

   After you download the migration gateway and certificate, you can install the gateway in your VMware environment. After the gateway is installed, you can migrate VMware VMs in the Cloud Backup console.

4. Add a vCenter Server

   To migrate VMware virtual machines, you must first add a vCenter server in the Cloud Backup console.

5. Migrate VMware VMs

   You can create a migration plan in the Cloud Backup console and specify whether to run the migration plan immediately or on a schedule, the virtual private cloud (VPC) to use, and the ECS instance type. Cloud Backup starts the migration plan and continuously migrates the VMware VMs to the specified ECS instances.

6. Confirm the migration completion

   You can click Finish Migration in the Cloud Backup console. Cloud Backup creates an ECS instance based on the last synchronized data and no longer runs synchronization jobs.

Costs

VMware VM migration incurs the following costs:

• VM migration service fee: Cloud Backup charges a service fee for each successfully migrated VM. A migration is considered successful when the task status is Completed. For pricing details, see Pricing.

• ECS instance, cloud disk, and image fees: When VM migration starts, Cloud Backup automatically creates a pay-as-you-go intermediate ECS instance. ECS instances and images are also created during migration validation. The fees for these ECS instances, cloud disks, and images are billed by ECS regardless of whether the migration succeeds or fails. For more information, see ECS billing.

Next steps

• To migrate VMware VMs, see VMware VM Migration.

• For Cloud Backup best practices, see Best practices.