Need guidance on recommended path and tooling for migrating on-premises VMware VMs to Azure Stack Hub

Question

Hi everyone

"We are planning to migrate several production virtual machines from our existing on-premises VMware environment to our Azure Stack Hub instance. We are seeking official guidance on the recommended Microsoft path for this migration.

We have explored options such as Azure Migrate and Azure Site Recovery (ASR) but understand these primarily support Azure Stack HCI or the public cloud, not Azure Stack Hub as a target.

Our current options seem to be a manual VHD conversion process or leveraging a third-party backup/restore solution (we use Dell EMC Avamar).

Specific Questions:

1. Is the manual VHD conversion and upload method the only officially supported first-party migration path from VMware to Azure Stack Hub?
2. Can Microsoft confirm the specific requirements for the VHD format (Gen1, fixed-size VHD, etc.) and any necessary in-guest OS preparations (e.g., removing VMware tools, enabling DHCP)?
3. Does Microsoft have any official documentation or validated guidance for using enterprise backup solutions like Dell EMC Avamar or Veritas NetBackup to perform this cross-platform migration?
4. Are there any future plans for a native, first-party automated tool (like Azure Migrate) that will support Azure Stack Hub as the migration target from VMware?
5. Can you provide any best practices or known issues we should be aware of during this migration process?"

Answer 1

Hello @keroles

Pls find the steps for migrating your on-premises VMware virtual machines to Azure Stack Hub.

Check the basics first

• Make sure the VM OS works with Azure Stack Hub.
• Double-check there’s enough storage and compute capacity.

Get the VMware VM ready

• Shut down the VM properly from vSphere/ESXi.
• Uninstall VMware Tools.
• Switch the disk type to fixed-size before you convert it.

Convert the disk to VHD

• Use MVMC or qemu-img for the job.
• Make sure you convert to VHD (not VHDX).
• Check that the VHD is fixed-size and Gen1 compatible.

Upload the VHD to Azure Stack Hub

• Log in to the Azure Stack Hub portal.
• Go to Storage Accounts → Containers → Upload.
• Pick your container and upload the VHD file.

Register the image

• Head to Compute → Images → Add.
• Give your image a name and select your uploaded VHD.
• Save it and make sure it’s registered.

Spin up a new VM

• Go to Compute → Virtual Machines → Add.
• Pick Custom Image and use your registered VHD.
• Set up the VM size, networking, and availability options.

Configure networking

• Enable DHCP or set a static IP.
• Check that the VM connects to both internal and external networks.

Start up and check the VM

• Power on the VM from the portal.
• See if the OS boots and your apps work.
• Test the disk and network performance.

Before Migration : 

1. Remove any VMware-specific drivers or tools before conversion.
2. Validate the image before creating multiple VMs.
3. Keep a backup of the original VM before migration.

Migrate VMware VMs to Azure (agentless) - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/migrate/tutorial-migrate-vmware?view=migrate

Azure Site Recovery - Widely used for disaster recovery, as a migration tool by replicating workloads continuously into Azure.

Switchover can be user-controlled to minimize downtime to a few minutes for final cutover

To Migrate Azure Cloud Services (classic) to Azure Cloud Services (extended support) - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cloud-services-extended-support/in-place-migration-overview

If strict zero downtime is essential, please plan carefully for synchronous replication and failover/cutover planning, testing thoroughly via the tools’ “test migration” features before going live

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Thanks,
Manish Deshpande.