You can use VMware Aria Operations for Networks to create a migration plan for your workloads. After creating your migration plan, you export it as part of migration waves and perform the migration in VMware HCX.

Use the comprehensive search, filtering, and flow analysis capabilities of VMware Aria Operations for Networks to identify and select the VMs for your workload migration. The creation of the migration plan consists of:

  • Creating the scope for your workload migration. Optionally, you can upload a CSV file with additional VM attributes to further enhance the scoping process.
  • Adding the workload of your migration scope to migration waves.
  • Organizing your migration waves into mobility groups.

After creating your migration plan in VMware Aria Operations for Networks, you export the migration waves as CSV files and import them to VMware HCX where the actual workload migration is performed.

Prerequisites

To enhance your search and filtering capabilities, you can include additional VM attributes in a CSV file you upload in VMware Aria Operations for Networks. In addition to the VM attributes you want to use, this file must contain the mandatory vc_ip and vm_moref attributes. The vc_ip attribute value is the IP address of the vCenter instance where the VM is hosted and the vm_moref attribute is the ID of the VM in the vCenter instance. To retrieve these attributes:

  1. From VMware Aria Operations for Networks select your VMs and from the top-right menu click Export as CSV.
  2. In the Selected properties (CSV columns) field, click Add properties.
  3. Search for and add the Vendor ID and Manager properties.
  4. Click Export.
  5. Open the exported CSV file. The vCenter column contains the value for the vc_ip property and the Vendor ID column contains the value for the vm_moref property.

Procedure

  1. From the left navigation panel, navigate to Plan and Access > Migration Planning and click Create Plan.
  2. Enter a name for your migration plan and click Proceed.
  3. (Optional) Add additional VM attributes for your migration plan.
    1. Click Add VM Attributes.
    2. Click Upload and select the CSV file you want to use.
    3. Verify that you are familiar with the content rules and that your CSV file includes the mandatory vc_ip and vm_moref attributes and click Upload and Proceed.
      After uploading the CSV file, you can see a breakdown of the total number of identified VMs, how many of them match or do not match the new attributes, and if there are any errors.
    4. To continue working on your migration plan, navigate to back to Plan and Access > Migration Planning and select your migration plan.
  4. Create the migration scope.
    1. Filter the VMs you want to add to your migration plan by using the available attributes or add additional attributes by clicking Add More.
    2. After selecting the VMs you want to add to the migration plan, click Add to Scope.
    3. (Optional) On the Network Dependencies tab, you can view any out-of-scope VMs identified as dependencies and add them to the current migration scope.
    4. (Optional) On the In Scope tab, view the VMs that you have currently added to the migration plan.
      By clicking on the Actions drop-down, you can remove any VMs you do not want as part of the migration plan or export the migration scope as a CSV file.
  5. Create migration waves.
    1. Select the VMs you want to add to a migration wave.
      Note: You can only add VMs belonging to the same vCenter instance in a specific migration wave. Parts of your workload from different vCenter instances must be included in a separate migration wave.
    2. From the Actions drop-down, select Create New Migration Wave.
    3. Enter a name for the migration wave and click Proceed.
    4. On the Network Dependencies tab, move VMs to a different migration wave or delete them from a migration wave.
    5. On the Migration Waves tab, view the currently created migration waves and their content. You can use the Actions drop-down to remove VMs from a migration wave.
  6. Organize your migration waves into mobility groups.
    1. Select the VMs from your migration wave you want to add to a mobility group.
      Note: You can add the VMs from a single migration wave to multiple mobility groups.
    2. Select the Actions drop-down and click Create Mobility Group.
    3. Enter a name for the mobility group and click Proceed.
    4. Repeat for all of your migration waves.
    5. (Optional) On the Network Dependencies, you can view the mobility groups for your VMs and move them to a different mobility group or remove them.
    6. On the Mobility Groups tab, view the currently created mobility groups and move and remove VMs if needed.
  7. On the Export Migration Waves page, you see an overview of your migration plan.
  8. Select a migration wave and click the export button on the right.
  9. Repeat for all of your migration waves.

Results

You have created a migration plan and exported your migration waves.

What to do next

Perform the workload migration in VMware HCX. For more information on VMware HCX, go to the official documentation.