Virtual Machine Migration Assistant
During large scale Kubernetes adoptions, workloads are often rehosted or migrated instead of being redeployed from scratch. This process allows system administrators to copy the application, together with its data, to a Kubernetes cluster. However, the migration of Virtual Machines (VMs) can be time consuming if done manually, so it is often automated with open source tools such as Forklift.
Palette provides the ability to migrate VMs from VMware vSphere to Virtual Machine Orchestrator (VMO) using the Virtual Machine Migration Assistant (VM Migration Assistant). The VM Migration Assistant is an add-on pack that can be added to your cluster profile and works alongside the VMO pack.
It provides a user-friendly interface to manage the migration process, including creating source providers, defining migration plans, and monitoring the status of migrations.
Limitations
The following are general limitations of the VM Migration Assistant.
-
You can migrate only VMs hosted in VMware vSphere 7.0 or 8.0.
-
You can migrate only VMs whose operating systems are present in the
virt-v2vsupported guest systems list. Refer to Verified Migrations for a list of verified migration combinations. -
Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) files are not supported as a provider type for migrations.
Verified Migrations
The following table lists virt-v2v migration combinations verified by Spectro Cloud. Other combinations may be valid
but have not been verified.
| Operating System | Cold Migration | Warm Migration |
|---|---|---|
| Fedora 40 | ✅ | ❌ |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 | ✅ | ❌ |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 | ✅ | ❌ |
| Ubuntu 22 | ✅ | ✅ |
| Ubuntu 22 (XFS filesystem) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Ubuntu 24 (Btrfs filesystem) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Ubuntu 24 (ext4 filesystem) | ✅ | ❌ |
| Windows Server 2019 | ✅ | ✅ |
| Windows Server 2025 (Desktop Experience) | ✅ | ✅ |
Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) is supported for cold and warm migrations, but has not been officially verified by Spectro Cloud.