Migrate Windows 2012R2 from Citrix XenServer to Nutanix AHV

September 25, 2015

NOTE: UPDATED VERSION IS AVAILABLE UNDER BELOW LINK Migrate Windows 2012R2 from Citrix XenServer to Nutanix AHV – Update

So far I have blogged out about:

And today, yet another migration post. this time how to Migrate Windows 2012R2 from Citrix XenServer to Nutanix AHV.

Pre-requsities:

Installed XenServer tools on VM
Installed Nutanix virtIO drivers
Linux VM with qemu-img installed
username and password for local user with Admin rights to server
remove all snapshots from VM
basic knowledge about Citrix XenServer, XenCenter and Nutanix AHV is a must 🙂

Migration:

Create new container on Nutanix AHV
Mount new container as NFS storage on Citrix XenServer
Move virtual machine disks to new storage
Stop VM

run command: xe list-vm
note down VM’s name and UUID
run command: xe vm-disk-list uuid=<vmUUID>

note down UUID for VDI files

[root@xenserver01 /]# xe vm-disk-list uuid=46796fa7-f31f-faa5-ae16-27414ae3b8e1
Disk 0 VBD:
uuid ( RO)             : c8d7ebcf-a958-424c-650e-64488fed6794
    vm-name-label ( RO): win2k12r2xs
       userdevice ( RW): 1

Disk 0 VDI:
uuid ( RO)             : 46b05e07-f3f2-478c-a7eb-d9a416713b51
       name-label ( RW): data01
    sr-name-label ( RO): NFS virtual disk storage
     virtual-size ( RO): 10737418240

Disk 1 VBD:
uuid ( RO)             : 6bbaca4c-dba5-296a-5d57-056be1129a03
    vm-name-label ( RO): win2k12r2xs
       userdevice ( RW): 0

Disk 1 VDI:
uuid ( RO)             : 1672ea5f-0185-4fa9-8c35-eb1aae6d865e
       name-label ( RW): win2k12r2xs 0
    sr-name-label ( RO): NFS virtual disk storage
     virtual-size ( RO): 34359738368

Disk 2 VBD:
uuid ( RO)             : 77611e99-7502-baaf-f669-4de562a8b42d
    vm-name-label ( RO): win2k12r2xs
       userdevice ( RW): 2

Disk 2 VDI:
uuid ( RO)             : fa29c3ea-be54-4839-9d60-1c571be17ce6
       name-label ( RW): data02
    sr-name-label ( RO): NFS virtual disk storage
     virtual-size ( RO): 11811160064

Log in to Linux with qemu-img installed – you can use either AHV host or some other linux box
Mount new container from Nutanix to linux host
run qemu-img and convert all disks from VHD to RAW format supported by Nutanix AHV
command example: qemu-img convert -f vpc UUID.vhd -O raw output_file.img

Below example of converting 3 disks from VHD to RAW

[root@kvn01 94087090-a91d-f09c-b6c7-7fd88498f4ac]# qemu-img convert -f vpc 1672ea5f-0185-4fa9-8c35-eb1aae6d865e.vhd -O raw win2k12xs01.img && qemu-img convert -f vpc 46b05e07-f3f2-478c-a7eb-d9a416713b51.vhd  -O raw win2k12xsdata01.img && qemu-img convert -f vpc fa29c3ea-be54-4839-9d60-1c571be17ce6.vhd -O raw win2k12xsdata02.img

[root@kvn01 94087090-a91d-f09c-b6c7-7fd88498f4ac]# ll
total 18941630
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  8489112064 Sep 23 14:00 1672ea5f-0185-4fa9-8c35-eb1aae6d865e.vhd
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    90374656 Sep 23 14:00 46b05e07-f3f2-478c-a7eb-d9a416713b51.vhd
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root  2463174656 Sep 23 14:46 a56f680d-3fe7-4cab-9a6d-9bc7a221c2db.vhd
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root    96682496 Sep 23 14:00 fa29c3ea-be54-4839-9d60-1c571be17ce6.vhd
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root         492 Sep 22 12:39 filelog.txt
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 34359214080 Sep 23 14:45 win2k12xs01.img
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 10737377280 Sep 23 14:45 win2k12xsdata01.img
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 11810856960 Sep 23 14:46 win2k12xsdata02.img

Create new VM in Nutanix Acropolis, use
- Operation: CLONE FORM ADSF FILE
- bus type: SCSI
  Select RAW disk image
Take VM snapshot before you start it up
Boot Windows in SAFE MODE
In device manager, check in Show hidden devices and remove all devices when you can see XEN ir Citrix in the name
Remove XenServer hardware from VM
Reboot VM
Uninstall all drivers and software which are related to Citrix
Uninstall all drivers and software
Reboot server
Assign IP address to VM and you are done 🙂