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Upload VM inventory data to NetApp Workload Factory

Contributors netapp-mwallis
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Before you can create a migration plan, you need to upload your VM inventory data.

Steps

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

  2. From the VMware workloads tile, select VMware planning center.

    From the planning center, you can upload your VM inventory data, see previous inventory data uploads, and plan a migration using any of the VM inventory datasets.

  3. Select Upload VM inventory.

  4. Choose which data collection method to use:

Use RVTools (quick assessment)

RVTools is a Windows application that interacts with VCenter and ESX server (5.x to 8.0) to capture information about your VMware virtual environments. It gathers information about VMs, CPU, memory, disks, clusters, ESX hosts, datastores, and more. You can export this information to an xlsx file to use with the migration advisor.

Learn more about RVTools

Steps

  1. Select the RVTools tile, and select Next.

    The Prepare for AWS Cloud onboarding page is displayed.

  2. Enter a name for the VM inventory dataset you will create.

  3. Download and install RVTools 4.4.2 or greater from RVTools website

  4. Launch RVTools and log in to the target VCenter Server.

    This will capture information about that VCenter Server.

  5. Export your VMware information to an xlsx or xls file.

    See the chapter on "commandline parameters" in the RVTools documentation for details.

  6. Select the upload button and choose the RVTools file you exported.

  7. Select Upload.

  8. Select Finish.

Use the Data collector (detailed planning)

The NetApp Migration advisor VM collector script gathers VM configuration information from your vCenter similar to what RVTools collects, however, it captures current VM performance data to provide actual read and write IOPS and throughput statistics. You can use the script in one of two modes:

  • Hourly data collection

  • Daily data collection

You need to start the Migration advisor to copy the Migration advisor VM collector script from the Codebox window.

Before you begin

The system where you'll be running the collector script must meet the following requirements:

  • Microsoft PowerShell 7.0 or greater must be installed. See the Microsoft PowerShell documentation if you need to install PowerShell.

  • VMware PowerCLI must be installed. See the VMware PowerCLI documentation if you need to install PowerCLI.

  • SSL certificate checking must be disabled.

  • PowerShell must allow running unsigned scripts.

Note that if you plan to capture long-term statistics from your VMs (daily statistics), you must have activated statistics level 3 or above in the vSphere management console (VMware management environment).

Steps

  1. Select the Data collector tile, and select Next.

    The Codebox window appears on the right side of the page.

  2. In the Codebox window, select either the download button to save the Migration advisor data collector script (named "list-vms.ps1") to the target system, or select the copy button to copy the script so you can paste it on the appropriate system.

  3. Follow these steps to capture the configurations of your current VMs:

    1. Log in to the system where you downloaded the data collector, on which PowerShell and PowerCLI are installed.

    2. Connect to your VMware vCenter server by running the following command:

      Connect-VIServer -server <server_IP>

      Replace <server_IP> with the IP address or hostname of your VMware server.

    3. Run the data collector script you downloaded and specify the data collection option for "hourly" or "daily" VM statistics.

      ./list-vms.ps1 -PerformanceStatisticsTimePeriod <LastHour | LastDay>

      where:

      • LastHour collects IOPS and throughput data for the past 1 hour with 20-second intervals.

      • LastDay collects IOPS and throughput data for the past 24 hours with 5-minute intervals.

    Optionally, you can run the data collector script without specifying any options; this enables you to select the data collection period from the interactive menu.

    + The script outputs a compressed file with a timestamp in the name in the current working directory. The .zip file contains a list of all VMs and their properties, along with their IOPS and throughput data.

  4. Select Upload.

Use NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights (detailed planning)

NetApp Data Infrastructure Insights is a cloud infrastructure monitoring tool that gives you visibility into your complete infrastructure. You need to enable enable temporary API communication between the migration advisor and Data Infrastructure Insights so that the migration advisor can gather information about your VMware infrastructure.

Learn more about Data Infrastructure Insights

Steps

  1. Select the Data Infrastructure Insights tile and select Next.

    The Prepare for AWS Cloud onboarding page is displayed.

  2. Enter a name for the VM inventory dataset you will create.

  3. Enter the tenant endpoint for Data Infrastructure Insights.

    This should be the URL you use to access Data Infrastructure Insights.

  4. If you have not yet generated an API access token for Data Infrastructure Insights, follow the instructions on the page to create one. Otherwise, paste your API access token in the Enter API Access Token text box.

  5. Select Upload.

    Workload Factory gathers information from Data Infrastructure Insights.

What's next?

Manage your uploaded VM inventory data from the planning center, or create a deployment plan.