Migrating to Yandex Cloud using Hystax Acura

You can use Hystax Acura to migrate your cloud infrastructure to Yandex Cloud from another cloud platform. To do so, you will need to create a VM with Hystax Acura in your cloud. This VM will be used to manage the migration setup and run, while the migration process itself will be performed by a service VM with Hystax Acura Cloud Agent. This service VM will migrate your VMs to your cloud. Before VM migration starts, VM replicas are created. Those replicas will be used for infrastructure deployment during migration.

To migrate VMs:

1. Prepare your cloud.
2. Create a service account and authorized key.
3. Configure network traffic permissions.
4. Create a VM with Hystax Acura.
5. Set up Hystax Acura.
6. Set up Hystax Acura Cloud Agent.
7. Create VM replicas.
8. Create a migration plan.
9. Start migration.

If you no longer need the resources you created, delete them.

Prepare your cloudPrepare your cloud

Sign up for Yandex Cloud and create a billing account:

1. Go to the management console and log in to Yandex Cloud or create an account if you do not have one yet.
2. On the Yandex Cloud Billing page, make sure you have a billing account linked and it has the ACTIVE or TRIAL_ACTIVE status. If you do not have a billing account, create one.

If you have an active billing account, you can go to the cloud page to create or select a folder for your infrastructure to operate in.

Learn more about clouds and folders.

Required paid resourcesRequired paid resources

The cost of the resources required to use Hystax Acura Live Migration includes:

• Fee for disks and continuously running VMs (see Yandex Compute Cloud pricing).
• Fee for storing images (see Compute Cloud pricing).
• Fee for using a dynamic or static public IP address (see Yandex Virtual Private Cloud pricing).
• Fee for each completed migration (see product description in Cloud Marketplace).

Create a service account and authorized keyCreate a service account and authorized key

Hystax Acura Live Migration will run under a service account:

1. Create a service account named hystax-acura-account with the editor and marketplace.meteringAgent roles.
2. Create an authorized key for the service account.

Save the following details to use in the next steps:

1. Service account ID.
2. Service account authorized key ID.
3. Service account private authorized key.

Configure network traffic permissionsConfigure network traffic permissions

Configure network traffic permissions in the default security group. If a security group is unavailable, any incoming or outgoing VM traffic will be allowed.

If a security group is available, add to it the following rules:

Save the security group ID. You will need it when creating VMs with Hystax Acura.

Create a VM with Hystax AcuraCreate a VM with Hystax Acura

Create a VM with a boot disk from the Hystax Acura Live Migration to Yandex Cloud image:

yc compute instance create \
  --name hystax-acura-vm \
  --zone <availability_zone> \
  --cores 8 \
  --memory 16 \
  --network-interface subnet-id=<subnet_ID>,nat-ip-version=ipv4,security-group-ids=<security_group_ID_if_group_set_up_previously> \
  --create-boot-disk name=hystax-acura-disk,size=200,image-id=<Hystax_Acura_image_ID> \
  --service-account-id <service_account_ID> \
  --ssh-key ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub

Set up Hystax AcuraSet up Hystax Acura

1. Open the hystax-acura-vm VM page in the management console and find its public IP address.

2. Enter the hystax-acura-vm VM public IP address in your browser. This will open the initial setup screen for Hystax Acura.

   Note

   Booting the Hystax Acura Live Cloud Migration VM for the first time will start an installation process which can take over 20 minutes.

3. By default, a Hystax Acura VM has a self-signed certificate installed.

4. When you are prompted to fill out the fields, use the values below:

   • Organization: Name of your organization.
   • Admin user login: Email address for logging in to the admin panel.
   • Password: Admin password.
   • Confirm password: Re-enter the admin password.

5. Click Next.

6. Specify the Yandex Cloud connection settings:

   • Service account ID: ID of the service account.

   • Key ID: ID of the service account authorized key.

   • Private key: Service account private key.

     Note

     If you obtained the ID and private key in a JSON file, e.g., when creating an authorized key via the CLI, remove the line break characters (\n) from the ID and the private key.

   • Default folder ID: ID of your folder.

   • Availability zone: Availability zone hosting the hystax-acura-vm VM.

   • Hystax Service Subnet: ID of the subnet the hystax-acura-vm VM is connected to.

   • S3 host: storage.yandexcloud.net.

   • S3 port: 443.

   • Enable HTTPS: Select this option to enable HTTPS connections.

   • Public IP address of the Hystax Acura management console: hystax-acura-vm public IP address. Replace the value in this field with the IP address obtained in Step 1.

   • Additional parameters: Additional parameters. Do not edit this field.

7. Click Next.

Hystax Acura will automatically check whether it can access your cloud. If everything is correct, you can now log on to the Hystax Control Panel using the specified email address and password.

Prepare and install agents for migrationPrepare and install agents for migration

The agents are normally installed onto VMs to be migrated to Yandex Cloud. To download and install an agent:

1. If you are migrating from VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, or any other hypervisor different from KVM, make sure to install virtio drivers on the VM before performing migration.

2. In the Hystax Acura admin panel, click the Download agent tab.

3. Choose one of the agent types depending on the OS:

   • VMware
   • Windows
   • Linux

   Click Next.

4. Download and install the agent on the VMs you would like to migrate:

   VMware

   Windows

   Linux

   1. Select New VMware vSphere and fill in these fields:

      • Platform name: Platform name.
      • Host IP address: IP address of the VMware ESXi host where to deploy the replication agent.
      • Login: Login.
      • Password: Password.

      Click Next.

   2. Click Download agent and wait for the download to complete.

   3. Unpack the downloaded OVA agent file to the VMs in your cluster.

   4. Start the VMs with the agent.

   1. Click Next.
   2. Click Download agent and wait for the download to complete.
   3. Unpack the archive and install the agent from hwragent.msi on the VMs you want to migrate.

   1. Select Linux distribution type:
      • CentOS/RHEL (.rpm package): CentOS or Red Hat-based.
      • Debian/Ubuntu (.deb package): Ubuntu or Debian.
   2. Select driver install method:
      • Pre-built: Install a driver binary.
      • DKMS: Compile as you install.
   3. Click Next.
   4. You will get commands for installing the agent to the VM. Run these commands following the instructions for your distribution and installation method.

The VM will show up in the target group a few minutes after the agent is installed.

Create VM replicasCreate VM replicas

Start replication:

1. Click the Hystax logo.
2. Under Machines Groups, select the virtual machines to replicate.
3. You can specify additional parameters for the network-ssd volume in the replication editing menu.
4. Click Bulk actions and in the menu that opens, select Start replication.

A VM replica will include all the data of the original VM; therefore, replication can take a long time (about 40 minutes). The replication status will be displayed in the Status column under Machines Groups. Wait for the status to change to Synced and make sure you can see the new replicas of the selected VMs in the Compute Cloud VM list in your folder.

Create a migration planCreate a migration plan

As soon as the VMs you are replicating switch to Synced, you can create a migration plan. The migration plan defines which machines should be migrated to your cloud and their start order after migration.

1. Click Add Migration plan.
2. Enter the migration plan name: YC Migration.
3. Under Devices & Ranks, click . In the menu that opens, click Add machine, pick the VM group you need, and select the VM you want to add to the migration plan. Repeat the steps for all VMs to migrate.
4. In the Subnet ID and the CIDR fields, specify the ID and CIDR of the subnet the VMs will be connected to following the migration.
5. Expand the device description and edit the Flavor name field (the new VM's parameters) as follows: <platform>-<cpu>-<ram>-<core_fraction>, e.g., 2-8-16-100.
6. In the Port ip field, enter a new VM IP from the current subnet.
7. Click Save.

Start migrationStart migration

Perform the migration as per the created plan:

1. Open the Migrate tab.
2. Select the YC Migration plan and click Next.
3. Enter CloudSite in the Cloud Site Name field.
4. Make sure all required resources are in the list and click Run migration.

The migration process might take about 10 minutes. The status of the VM being migrated will be displayed in the Status column under Machines. Wait for the status to change to Running, then make sure all required resources have been transferred and your applications are ready to run. If the migrated infrastructure is running as expected, click Detach on the CloudSite page and confirm the detach action.

How to delete the resources you createdHow to delete the resources you created

To stop paying for the migration infrastructure:

1. Delete hystax-acura-vm.
2. Delete the secondary cloud-agent VMs.
3. Delete the hystax-acura-account service account.

If you reserved a public static IP address, delete it.