Migrate bitlockered VM to Azure

Question

Hi, We have bitlockered some machines in our onprem HyperV environment and are looking to migrate (shift and lift) some of the VMs to Azure. We, currently, do not store our keys in AD due to us having Gen1 machines and not interested in using the storage key facility in HyperV. We are, however, in the process of migrating to Gen2 VMs. What I would like to know is how to migrate a bitlockered VM to Azure. I haven't tested yet but busy looking into doing this. Does the VM migration tool from MS do this for you? I know how to bitlocker VMs in Azure but those are existing VMs that are not already bitlockered. Is it a case of installing the extension and it goes and stores the key for you in the keyvault? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hello @Ukkaapie Thank you for reaching out to us on Microsoft Q&A platform. Happy to answer any questions you may have!

From the information you provided, I understand that you have an on-premises Hyper-V VMs with BitLocker enabled and you want to migrate them to Azure. As per support matrix documentation:

Azure Migrate - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/migrate/migrate-support-matrix-hyper-v-migration#azure-vm-requirements

Azure Site Recovery - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/hyper-v-azure-support-matrix#azure-vm-requirements

Checked with the SME and the concerned team for a possible workaround or alternative solution to cater this scenario. But I was informed that there is no workaround/alternative. BitLocker needs to be disabled before enabling replication for a VM.

Appreciate your patience and time in this matter!

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