After the source cluster under VMware ESXi, we must now add the target cluster which run Nutanix AHV.

The process is similar to the one used previously for WMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V clusters and I will start by adding an account dedicated to Move on my cluster.

Adding a Move service account

To add the service account dedicated to Nutanix Move on your Nutanix AHV cluster, connect to Prism Element then go to “Settings > Local User Management” and click on “New User”:

Fill in the fields with the necessary information and check the “Cluster Admin” role. Your service account is ready, now let’s add the Nutanix AHV cluster on Nutanix Move.

Adding the AHV cluster on Nutanix Move

In the “Environments” section of Nutanix Move, click on “+ Add Environment”:

Next, fill in the fields with the information corresponding to the Nutanix AHV cluster to which you want to migrate the VMs from the ESXi and Hyper-V clusters:

The required information is as follows:

• 1 – Environment type, select Nutanix AHV
• 2 – Name the added cluster
• 3 – Enter the IP address of the cluster (Prism Element or Prism Central of your choice)
• 4 – Enter the logins and password of the service account previously created

Wait for a few minutes and your cluster will then be available in NutanixMove :

Your source and destination clusters are now all configured on Nutanix Move, the next step will be to create the migration plans.

Once the deployment of the Nutanix Move appliance is complete, it remains to carry out its initial configuration in order to begin setting up future migration plans.

Network setup

To configure the network and switch to fixed IP, you must connect to the Move VM in SSH with the account “admin” and the password “nutanix/4u”. As this is the first connection, you will be asked to change the password.

Once the new password is configured, the network configuration tool launches automatically and you just have to follow the instructions:

Alpine Linux v3.16 (3.16.2) - Nutanix Move

Welcome to Nutanix Move. Please refer to the Move documentation
to know more about the console usage and troubleshooting.

https://www.nutanix.com/products/move/

Do you want to configure static IPv4 address? (y/N)
y
Enter Static IPv4 Address (e.g. 192.168.1.3)
192.168.2.240
Enter Netmask (e.g. 255.255.255.0)
255.255.255.0
Enter Gateway IP Address (e.g. 192.168.1.254)
192.168.2.254
Enter DNS Server 1 IP Address (e.g. 128.91.2.13)
8.8.8.8
Enter DNS Server 2 IP Address (e.g. 128.91.2.14)
8.8.4.4
Enter Domain (e.g. my.dc.domain)
homelab.local

Static IPv4 configuration provided:
ipaddress * 192.168.2.240
netmask * 255.255.255.0
gateway * 192.168.2.254
dns1 * 8.8.8.8
dns2 * 8.8.4.4
domain * homelab.local

Configuring static IPv4 …

WARNING: you are stopping a boot service
WARNING: you are stopping a boot service

Stopping busybox ntpd … [ ok ]
Stopping networking …
lo … [ ok ]
eth0 …

First login

In the “My Apps” menu of the Admin Center, you can click on “Open” to access the Nutanix Move web interface:

The first thing you will be asked to do is accept the End User License Agreement:

You will then be asked to set up a password to secure access to Move:

And finally, choose the type of migration you want to perform. This choice has no impact on the rest of the events, you will be able to perform the 2 types of migration regardless of your choice:

Congratulations, Nutanix Move is now deployed on your Nutanix cluster:

But that’s not all!

Nutanix Move Basic Configurations

There are still a few small configurations to be done to have an optimal Nutanix Move deployment. The appliance configuration is located in the gear menu at the top right, then in “Appliance Settings”:

Among the options that can be customized, the only one that is of real interest to me is the NTP part to ensure consistent time synchronization across your entire Nutanix cluster:

For the NTPs, no problem since you just need to enter the same NTPs as those you configured on the Prism Element side:

The “Prism Central Registration” part is intended to override the Move authentication that you configured at the first connection by authentication via the accounts present in Prism Central that you wish to authorize to connect to the Nutanix Move appliance:

That’s it, your Nutanix Move is now ready to use. In the next blog posts we will see how to add ESXi, Hyper-V and AHV clusters and how to configure the first migration plan.

In the previous article I gave you a presentation of the infrastructure that I set up to produce my series of articles on Nutanix Move.

In this new article, we will see how to deploy the Nutanix Move virtual machine on our Nutanix AHV cluster.

Prerequisites and update of the Move image

The deployment of Nutanix Move on the latest versions of AHV with a Prism Central 2024 must be done from the marketplace, one of the new features of recent versions of Prism Central.

If you have not yet deployed Prism Central on your cluster in AOS 6.8: https://juliendumur.fr/en/nutanix-ce-2-1-deploy-prism-central-pc-2024/

Then, before deploying Nutanix Move, it is necessary to update the disk image integrated into Prism Central. To download the latest version of Move, go to the following link: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/downloads?product=move

You need to download the file “Move QCOW2 file for AHV”:

Then go to Prism Central, in “Infrastructure > Compute and Storage > Images” and click on “Add Image”:

On the next page, click on “+ Add file”, select the image that has just been downloaded from the Nutanix website and click on “Next”:

On the next page, leave as default and click “Save”:

Please wait while the image is transferred and processed:

Once this is done we can move on to deployment.

Nutanix Move deployment

To deploy Nutanix Move, you need to log in to Prism Central and go to the Marketplace menu in the Admin Center. In the drop-down menu at the top of the interface, select “Admin Center” and then click on “Marketplace”:

Then, simply click on the “Get” button in the “Move” box and then on the “Deploy” button on the Move page to start the deployment process:

The page that is then displayed allows you to configure all the parameters that we want to assign to the Move virtual machine that we are going to deploy. The first field to modify is the “Application Name” field that must be filled in:

In the following fields, no changes are needed to the VM name or its hardware configuration:

For disk configuration, modify the image to select the one we transferred to the cluster previously:

Select the network on which to place the Move virtual machine:

Then enter the identifiers to assign to the SSH account:

The virtual machine deployment start:

You can track the VM deployment on the “My Apps” page of the Admin Center, if you click on “Manage”:

Once the deployment is complete and Nutanix Move is functional, the status will change to “Running”:

Nutanix Move is a software solution designed by Nutanix to facilitate the migration of virtual machines (VMs) from a virtualization environment to a Nutanix infrastructure in a simple, secure way and with minimal downtime.

Key features of Nutanix Move

Nutanix Move allows you to move virtual machines from traditional hypervisors, such as VMware vSphere or Hyper-V, to Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor) or other supported hypervisors. It supports various hypervisor environments such as VMware ESXi, Hyper-V, AWS, and Nutanix AHV. It is possible to migrate workloads from public or private cloud environments to Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructures.

Nutanix Move ensures a migration by minimizing the downtime of services and applications, thus allowing continuity of operations during the entire transition process. In addition, you will not have to reconfigure anything once the virtual machine is migrated.

Thanks to an intuitive interface, Nutanix Move simplifies the migration process by automating many manual tasks, which reduces the risk of human error and improves efficiency. However, certain prerequisites must be respected for the migration to take place in the best conditions

Nutanix Move allows you to evaluate workloads before migration, identifying potential issues in order to avoid any negative impact on application performance after migration. It also allows you to simulate your scenarios before executing them.

Use Cases

The use case we have encountered most often in recent months is that of companies seeking to reduce costs related to the explosion in the price of VMware licenses following the acquisition by Broadcom by migrating to Nutanix AHV.

For my part, I was also able to experiment with it on a remote desktop server migration from Hyper-V to Nutanix AHV and I must say that with each migration I am amazed by the simplicity and efficiency of the solution.

Having implemented it several times in a professional context, I can affirm that Nutanix Move is an essential tool for anyone wishing to modernize their IT infrastructure and facilitate their transition to a Nutanix hyperconverged environment.

See you in the next article to discover how to deploy the solution on Nutanix AHV.

Official documentation: https://portal.nutanix.com/page/documents/details?targetId=Nutanix-Move-