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Create a deployment plan for Amazon EVS using the migration advisor

Contributors netapp-mwallis
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From the VMware planning center, you can launch the Amazon EVS migration advisor to help create a migration plan that is customized for your needs.

Note that you must have a user name and password to access Workload Factory. If you don't have access, create an account now. See the instructions here.

Create a deployment plan using the migration advisor

You can create a deployment plan to migrate virtual machines to Amazon Elastic VMware Service and use customized Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file systems as external datastores. The options in the migration advisor might differ depending on the tool used to collect the VM inventory data.

Requirements

  • You must have an Amazon Elastic VMware Service subscription.

Steps

  1. Log in to Workload Factory using one of the console experiences.

  2. Optionally, if you accessed Workload Factory from the Workload Factory console, from the VMware workloads tile, select VMware planning center and then select VMware planning center. The VMware planning center is displayed.

  3. Select a VM inventory from the list that you want to use to make a deployment plan, and select Start planning in that row.

  4. Select EVS from the drop-down menu that appears.

    The Prepare for AWS Cloud onboarding wizard appears.

  5. Enter the required information.

Specify

  1. In the VM configuration upload section, review information about the dataset you are using to create a migration plan. The VM inventory summary section is populated from the inventory file to reflect the number of VMs and the total storage capacity.

  2. In the VM inventory considerations section, select the options to filter the list of VMs that you want to migrate:

    1. Region: Select the region where Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file systems will be deployed. For optimal performance and cost efficiency, this is typically the same region as where your existing Amazon EC2 SDDC is deployed.

    2. Choose a predicted performance level for the VMs in this region. We recommend that you begin with a smaller IOPS setting. You can increase your provisioned SSD IOPS after the file system is created as workloads are migrated or deployed:

      • Standard to high performance: For VMs with average IO rates between 20 and 5000 IOPS.

      • Very high performance: For VMs with average IO rates of greater than 5000 IOPS.

      • Very low performance: For VMs with average IO rates lower than 20 IOPS.

  3. In the Target capacity and protection considerations section, select from a few storage options:

    1. VM Storage to consider: Select whether the datastores created for each onboarded VM are sized based on their currently utilized size (recommended) or their provisioned size.

      The external datastores will be implemented using Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file system volumes.

    2. Average data reduction ratio: Choose from among the three common data reduction ratios. Select "1:1 - No reduction", "1:1.25 - 20% reduction", or "1:1.5 - 33% reduction".

      Select Help me decide if you're unsure which ratio to choose. The Data reduction ratio assistant dialog appears. Select any statements that apply to your VM inventory and storage estate. The assistant will recommend an appropriate data reduction rate. Select Apply to use the recommended ratio.

    3. Headroom percentage: Enter the percentage of capacity growth that is added to the capacity for your FSx for ONTAP file systems.

      Note that if you select an amount less than 20% you won't be able to create volume snapshots for protection and long-term backups.

    4. VM snapshot protection: Enable this option to protect the VMs with snapshots.

  4. Select Next.

Select

  1. On the Select virtual machines page, select the VMs from the list that you want to include in the AWS migration. You can filter the list by the power state of each VM, and which data center and cluster the VM resides in.

    In the VM list, you can select which types of VM information to display as columns. For example, selecting Peak read IOPS displays a column with the peak read IOPS for each VM.

  2. Optionally, you can choose to optimize the deployment for cost or recoverability.

    • Cost: Workload Factory chooses VMs from the list that have lower I/O density. This helps reduce resource requirements.

    • Recoverability: Workload Factory chooses VMs from the list that are the easiest to quickly copy locally. This offers quick recovery times in case of disruptions.

  3. Select Next.

Design

  1. On the ClassReview instance storage assignment page, review the VM information, volume classification rules, volume assignments, and list of volumes that will be migrated as part of deployment, and then select Next.

Review plan

  1. On the Review plan page, review the estimated monthly savings and cost estimates for all the VMs that you plan to migrate.

    The top of the page estimates the monthly savings for FSx for ONTAP file systems and EBS volumes. You can expand each section to view details for the suggested filesystem configuration, estimated savings breakdown, assumptions, and technical disclaimers.

    The migration plan is automatically saved in the list of plans in the planning center by default.

  2. When you are ready to proceed with the plan, select Provision to begin deploying the recommended Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP file system.

Deploy the VMware workloads recommended FSx for ONTAP file system.