Do we need two accounts (On at VMware level with required permissionas and one with admin access for push installation of mobility service) for replication of on-premises VMs to Azure using ASR?

Question

Hi,

We are planning to migrate on-premises VMs on VMware to Azure. So, we are gathering pre-requisites to perform setup?

For the automatic discovery of VMs and push installation of mobility service, we assume that below are the pre-requisites required? Can this be confirmed? Do we really need the account mentioned in the 3rd point below? Doesn't the account which is created in 1st point handle the installation of mobility agents on servers?

1. Dedicated account at with role as (Azure_Site_Recovery) at vCenter level

2. Permissions required for the above account as per details in the link "https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/site-recovery/vmware-azure-tutorial-prepare-on-premises#prepare-an-account-for-automatic-discovery"

3. A local or domain account with admin privileges to perform push installation of mobility service on each VM (Disable remote login, if a local account is created)

Regards,
VJ

Answer 1

Hi @VJ-8370

If you decide to let ASR deploy the mobility agent for you and depending the OS you want to replicate, you will need to provide two more credentials. One for Windows Machines and another one for Linux machines.

Another solution would be that you deploy the Mobility agent using another solution such as System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) or any other deployment method.

For a migration project (not a Disaster Recovery), you also have another options to Migrate the VMs from VMware that is not using ASR and which is Agentless. You will find a comparison on the following link:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/migrate/server-migrate-overview

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Regards,
Didier3001

Answer 2

@VJ-8370 If you are actually migrating to Azure, then Azure Site Recovery (ASR) is not the right tool selection. I would recommend you look at Azure Migrate, as it’s purpose-built/optimized for migrations (ASR is a DR tool).

With Azure Migrate, there is both an agent-based, and agentless-based migration option. I would compare those options with your needs, and go from there.

As for your question about two accounts: Yes, both accounts are needed, the vCenter account is for gathering the “hardware” information from the vCenter for the VMs, the local/domain admin account is to be able to log in into the VMs and install software on the OS.

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