We’ve been waiting for them for several days, they’ve finally arrived! I’m obviously talking about AOS 7 and AHV 10 which were made available this Wednesday, December 4 by Nutanix.
What’s new in AOS 7
Among the new features in AOS 7 you will be able to find:
Nutanix, through Nutanix University, has just launched the new versions of its flagship certifications: the Nutanix Certified Associate (NCA) 6.10 and the Nutanix Certified Professional – Multi-Cloud Infrastructure (NCP-MCI) 6.10.
If you are an IT professional, passionate about the cloud or if you want to validate your skills with one of the major players in the sector, this certification update is an opportunity not to be missed.
Why take these certifications?
Nutanix certifications are recognized worldwide to validate skills in the design, deployment, and management of cloud infrastructures. In particular:
The NCA 6.10 certification is aimed at beginners or intermediate professionals, those who wish to demonstrate their understanding of the fundamental principles of virtualization, storage, and cloud environments with Nutanix.
The NCP-MCI 6.10 certification is aimed at experts who want to validate their mastery of multi-cloud infrastructure concepts, resource management across multiple platforms, and how to optimize hybrid and multi-cloud environments with Nutanix.
These certifications can play a decisive role in your career path, proving your skills and opening up new opportunities in companies of all sizes.
Free Registration Until December 13!
To celebrate the launch of these new certifications, Nutanix is offering an exclusive opportunity: the NCA 6.10 and NCP-MCI 6.10 certification exams are free until December 13, 2024! This is the perfect opportunity to validate your skills for just 1 cent.
Once registered, you will have access to the online training platform and will be able to schedule your exam according to your availability. At the time of payment, use the discount coupon corresponding to the chosen certification:
NCA 6.10: NXFRNCA24
NCP-MCI 6.10: NXFRNCP24
Important: The free offer is valid until December 13, 2024. After this date, the discount coupons will no longer be valid. So don’t hesitate to register now to avoid missing this opportunity!
Then, in the list of files, look for the “Prism Central LCM Bundle” file:
Wait for the download, which may take a while (nearly 10Gb to retrieve!).
Update file transfer
Once the update file has been retrieved, it must now be transferred to the cluster. To do this, connect to your Prism Central interface and go to the “LCM” menu of the Admin Center. Open the “Direct Upload” menu:
Then click on “+ Upload Bundle” and go select the file you just downloaded:
Wait while the download is complete. Once the operation is complete, the update package should appear in the list:
Prism Central Update
To install the newly transferred update, if you have followed the previous steps correctly you should find it in the “Updates” menu:
Check the update, click on “View Upgrade Plan”:
Check the proposed update plan and click on “Apply 1 Updates”:
The update process is launched, you just have to wait a few dozen minutes for the update to be complete:
Installing the update on your cluster will have no impact on your production environment, however you will not be able to access Prism Central for the duration of the update. You can follow the progress of the operations from the Prism Central VM console:
After about thirty minutes, the update installation should be complete and your Prism Central updated to pc.2024.2:
Allow another fifteen minutes before it is fully operational.
Update, October 12, 2026: Broadcom no longer lets you download the VDDK. Since Nutanix Move 6.3.3, the DirectPath method migrates from ESXi to AHV without these files, and I cover that release in Nutanix Move 6.3.3: DirectPath, Migration Without VDDK.
I talked about it in one of the articles of my ultimate guide on Nutanix Move, for versions higher than 5.3.0 of Nutanix Move, the integration of VDDK files is now a mandatory step to be able to add a VMware ESXi cluster on Move.
What is VDDK? VDDK (VMware Virtual Disk Development Kit) is a set of libraries and utilities provided by VMware that allows applications to perform operations on virtual disks. These operations include creating, accessing, and managing virtual disks used by VMware environments. Nutanix Move uses VDDK to perform migrations from VMware environments. By using VDDK, Nutanix Move can:
Access VMware virtual disk
Create and manage snapshots
Transfer data efficiently
Why do I need to install VDDK manually (since Move 5.3)? You need to install VDDK manually because it is required for migration and Nutanix Move cannot download it automatically. This requirement is now common to other migration products that use VDDK. The integration of VDDK with Nutanix Move has therefore been updated since version 5.3. This change is to align with how other vendors integrate VDDK into their migration tools.
What are the required VDDK versions for ESXi 5.x, 6.x, and 7.x? For ESXi 5.1: VDDK 6.0.3 is required. For other supported ESXi versions: VDDK 7.0.3.1 is required. Note: In Move, if you add a vCenter instead of an ESXi host, VDDK 7.0.3.1 will be required.
To be able to retrieve these files, an active account on the Broadcom website was until now necessary to download the VDDKs. The problem that arose was that the website of the new owner of VMware has suffered a series of malfunctions in recent weeks that made it impossible to download these precious files.
Faced with the wave of discontent on social networks such as X or Reddit, an alternative download solution has been set up!
It’s finally complete! After about fifty hours spent installing, configuring, testing a lab environment and writing each article, my ultimate Nutanix Move guide on migrating to Nutanix AHV is finally finished.
In total, this represents:
6500+ words
160+ screenshots
50+ hours of work
This is clearly one of the most ambitious projects on my blog! To make it easier to find all of my current or future guides, I have created a dedicated link in the menu.
The guide will probably evolve if I come across new interesting cases to share to expand my feedback.
Don’t forget that the success of your migration to Nutanix AHV will depend greatly on the preparation you do in advance.
You now have the keys to successfully migrating from Microsoft Hyper-V or VMware ESXi to Nutanix AHV.
And if you are still hesitant to take the plunge, do not hesitate to come and share your questions, your fears or even ask other people who have already been there to give you their feedback.
It may happen that you are hosting servers whose operating systems are not supported by Nutanix Move. In these rare cases, you will then have to proceed manually to migrate your virtual machines and you may be faced with post-migration boot issues.
For the demonstration, I chose a really old operating system: Ubuntu 12.04.
This version is not part of the list of systems supported by Nutanix Move for migration and the migration must therefore be done manually:
I have set up a manual migration plan for this virtual machine and I am proceeding with its migration which is going smoothly:
Unfortunately, when starting the virtual machine on the Nutanix AHV side, I encounter a boot problem:
To fix this issue, I shut down the virtual machine, log into my Prism Central, and navigate to the “Compute and Storage > Images” menu:
I click on “Add Image”, select “VM Disk” as the image source and select my Ubuntu12 VM:
I name the disk with an explicit name and click on “Next”:
I leave the image placement option in its default configuration and save:
I then go back to the “Compute and Storage > VMs” menu and open the control panel of my virtual machine:
The part that interests us concerns the machine’s 2 disks with a virtual disk and a CD-ROM type reader:
The first step is to delete all disks by clicking on the trash icon:
Then, once the 2 disks are deleted, click on “Attach Disk”:
Configure the disk as follows:
1 – Type : Disk
2 – Operation : Clone From Image
3 – Image : select the disk you added initially
4 – Capacity : you can make it any size you want
5 – Bus Type : select PCI
Validate the new configuration of your virtual machine and boot it. The boot problem is now fixed, and the operating system boots perfectly fine:
Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.2.0-23-generic x86_64)
Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/ System information as of Thu Sep 26 15:58:58 CEST 2024 System load: 0.0 Processes: 67
Usage of /: 3.5% of 37.68GB Users logged in: 1
Memory usage: 2% IP address for eth0: 192.168.2.137
Swap usage: 0% Graph this data and manage this system at https://landscape.canonical.com/
0 packages can be updated. 0 updates are security updates.
Your Ubuntu release is not supported anymore. For upgrade information, please visit: http://www.ubuntu.com/releaseendoflife
New release '14.04.6 LTS' available. Run 'do-release-upgrade' to upgrade to it.
Last login: Thu Sep 26 15:58:05 2024
nutanix@ubuntu24hv:~$
The main problem encountered when migrating these obsolete systems is a boot issue. By following this method, you should be able to migrate all your virtual machines without any problems.
It may happen that you host servers whose operating systems are not supported by Nutanix Move. In these rare cases, you will then have to proceed manually to migrate your virtual machines and you may encounter post-migration network issues.
In my example, I deployed on my ESXi an Ubuntu Server machine in version 24.04LTS, an operating system released only a few months ago. It is not yet officially supported by Nutanix Move according to the documentation:
When creating my migration plan, I did not encounter any errors, I was able to validate the options without any problems, in automatic mode and I start it immediately.
Unfortunately, the automatic preparation of the virtual machine fails:
The message is clear, Nutanix Move cannot install the necessary drivers:
Drivers Installation Failed. Driver(s) virtio_scsi could not be installed for kernel 6.8.0-45-generic
So I delete my migration plan, create a new one manually and shut down the virtual machine without running the scripts:
I then start my migration plan to migrate the virtual machine to my AHV cluster and everything goes well:
Once the data transfer is complete, I launch the switch immediately. The server is migrated:
On the Nutanix AHV side, I can clearly see my freshly migrated virtual machine:
I start the virtual machine to check that the migration went well. The VM starts correctly but it does not take an IP address…
This problem is common with recent operating systems. As a general rule, they integrate the modules and components necessary for full support by Nutanix. However, it is common for the configuration of the network cards not to be correctly resumed after migration.
To correct the malfunction, you must open a console on your VM and perform the configuration manually.
We start by retrieving the name of the interface:
nutanix@ubuntu24e1:~$ sudo lshw -class network [sudo] password for nutanix: *-network description: Ethernet controller product: Virtio network device vendor: Red Hat, Inc. physical id: 3 bus info: pci@0000:00:03.0 version: 00 width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: msix bus_master cap_list rom configuration: driver=virtio-pci latency=0 resources: irq:11 ioport:c040(size=32) memory:febd1000-febd1fff memory:fe000000-fe003fff memory:feb80000-febbffff *-virtio0 description: Ethernet interface physical id: 0 bus info: virtio@0 logical name: ens3 serial: 50:6b:8d:c0:82:7b capabilities: ethernet physical
Here it is ens3. Now we will modify the network card configuration file:
nutanix@ubuntu24e1:~$ sudo vi /etc/netplan/50-cloud-init.yaml
This file is generated from information provided by the datasource. Changes to it will not persist across an instance reboot. To disable cloud-init's network configuration capabilities, write a file /etc/cloud/cloud.cfg.d/99-disable-network-config.cfg with the following:
network: {config: disabled}
network:
ethernets:
ens160:
dhcp4: true
version: 2
Correct the “ens” line with the correct name of your network card and save the file. Apply the configuration:
sudo netplan apply
That’s it, the machine retrieves an IP address.
You get the idea, my example is based on Ubuntu but reproducible on other recent Linux distributions, as long as you adapt the commands to the operating system.
A migration plan can be in different distinct states depending on the stage of the migration:
Not Started: You have created the migration plans but have not yet started them
In Progress: The migration plan is launched, the data is starting to be replicated.
Ready to Cutover: The data migration is complete, Nutanix Move continues to synchronize the changes, the virtual machines are waiting to be switched to the target cluster.
Paused: You have paused the process for some reason. The data migration is suspended.
Failed: Error during the process of preparing the machines in general. The anomaly must be corrected in order to resume the operations.
Completed: The virtual machines that have been successfully migrated.
Starting migrations
If you have planned to start one of your migration plans like me, you should already have virtual machines in “Ready to Cutover” status.
This means that they are ready to complete their migration.
For other pending migration plans, you need to start them manually. To do this, check the box in front of the migration plans you want to start, click on the “Action” menu at the top of the list and click on “Start”:
The migration plan starts to execute:
If you followed all the steps correctly, the migration plan should go smoothly. You can track the progress of the plan on the corresponding line, and of the virtual machines in the boxes at the very top:
By clicking on the “2 VMs” in the banner, you will have a step by step guide for each virtual machine:
You can get more details on the operations carried out in the “Events” menu at the top right of the interface:
Synchronizing the data with the new cluster is the longest step of the process and will depend on the volume of your virtual machines.
The cutover
The cutover is the operation that will allow you to finalize the migration from the old cluster to the new one.
You can only perform a Cutover on virtual machines that are in the “Ready to Cutover” state:
To check the status of the virtual machines and proceed with the cutover, click on the “2 VMs” in the “Ready to cutover” frame:
You will then have the list of VMs ready to switch to the new cluster. You can do them all at once, or one by one, it doesn’t matter. It’s up to you. I will migrate Ubuntu_4 by checking the box at the beginning of the line and then clicking on “cutover”:
Validation is required to start the process:
The failover process only takes a few minutes during which Nutanix Move will:
Power off the VM
Create a final snapshot
Synchronize it with the target cluster
Create the target VM
Clean up the source VM (disconnect network cards)
Delete all snapshots created by Move
Consolidate the virtual machine disks
Clean up the target VM
The migration status for this virtual machine then changes to “Completed” and I find it on my Nutanix AHV, started and functional:
The virtual machine is successfully migrated, I just have to do all the others.
You thought it was over and that we would go straight to the migration? Well, not quite! I still have a few things to say and share with you before: my final tips and best practices based on my experience!
Careful preparation
The first and I think most important advice I can give you is to prepare your migration well. List your virtual machines, identify the installed operating systems, check that they are up to date and that the migration prerequisites are met…
It takes time, but it is the key to a successful migration every time.
Measured migration plans
My second piece of advice is to create migration plans of a reasonable size. If the software limit can go up to 100 virtual machines per migration plan, I would advise you to limit yourself to a maximum of twenty machines.
This allows you to better manage your migration, to have fewer potential errors to manage and to be able to correct problems more quickly if you encounter them once the virtual machines have been switched over and to limit the risk of prolonged service interruption.
Homogeneous migration plans
As far as possible, try to create migration plans grouping virtual machines that are similar in terms of operating system. Again, in the event of a problem during the migration, it will always be easier to look for a common error on several servers with the same operating system than between disparate servers.
Take your time
Above all, do not rush! It is better to take your time and make a smooth migration, rather than rushing, encountering problems, being forced to backtrack, etc. Take the time to build your migration plans, to prepare them well, to configure them in their smallest details so that they go smoothly.
Some good practices to follow
Here are some good practices to follow that will allow you to avoid a certain number of inconveniences. There are probably others that I have not mentioned but this already constitutes a solid base:
Check the compatibility of your operating systems.
Check that all the prerequisites are respected upstream.
In the previous blog post, we saw how to create migration plans from ESXi to AHV. Now it’s Hyper-V’s turn and you’ll see that the process is almost identical!
Prerequisites
For everything to go well, some prerequisites must be taken into account and here are the 3 most important in my opinion:
Creating the migration plan from Microsoft Hyper-V to Nutanix AHV
On the Nutanix Move interface, click on the “+ New Migration Plan” button and name the migration plan:
On the next screen, you must choose the source cluster on the one hand, then the destination cluster with the associated Storage Container:
Here, this gives:
1 – HyperV Cluster
2 – Nutanix Cluster
3 – DefaultStorangeContainer
On the next screen, it’s time to choose the virtual machines you want to migrate by clicking on the “+” buttons at the beginning of the line. Here I will only pick one virtual machine that I know is not supported, to show the manual method:
Here, I chose to select the Ubuntu_4 and Windows_4 virtual machines.
On the next screen, it is the network mapping that needs to be done. For each network available on your Hyper-V cluster, you will need to assign a network from your Nutanix cluster:
Here, I have only one network in my demo environment. If you have multiple networks on your Hyper-V cluster, you will need to create them all on the AHV side in order to achieve an identical mapping on both sides.
The next window allows you to configure the preparation of virtual machines.
Automatic preparation of virtual machines
The recommended mode is the automatic mode because Nutanix Move will take care of all the operations once the machine login credentials are configured.
Please note that automatic mode only works on operating systems fully supported by Nutanix Move.
You will then need to configure the identifiers of the Windows and Linux virtual machines:
The general option is only valid if you have set the same username and password on all your virtual machines (example for Windows: the domain administrator account).
If this is not the case, you can customize all the settings per virtual machine by clicking on “Change settings” under “Override individual VM Preparation”:
Manual preparation of virtual machines
The overall configuration remains the same, but when configuring the virtual machine preparation mode if you choose Manual mode you will have a different page:
No need to provide login credentials to virtual machines. On the other hand, all the automated preparation part carried out by Nutanix Move on your virtual machines will have to be done manually on each machine.
Nutanix Move provides scripts for Linux and Windows servers that you will have to run manually. A much more time-consuming option and source of potential errors that make me systematically prefer the automatic mode.
However, this migration mode may sometimes be necessary, particularly to migrate virtual machines whose operating system is not officially supported by Nutanix Move.
Finalizing the migration plan
On the next screen, the configuration of the virtual machines allows you to prioritize or not the migration operations, to choose the time zone that you wish to assign or even to schedule the start of the data transfer:
Don’t panic though, enabling data transfer does not mean that the machines will be migrated, simply the data of these machines will start to synchronize with the target cluster. This synchronization will continue as long as you do not trigger the migration.
Once your configurations are complete, Move will display a summary of your migration plan:
Click on “Save” to validate it, your migration plan is ready and you can find it on the Nutanix Move home page:
Other migration plans can be created in the same way.
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