Veeam Instant Recovery to Migrate Hyper-V to VMware VM

You can restore the Hyper-V backups by using Veeam's Instant Recovery, boot the servers directly from the backup storage, and then migrate them to production storage via Storage vmotion (if licensed) or via Veeam's Qucik Migration.

Next, this article will demonstrate exactly how to perform Veeam instant recovery from Hyper-V to VMware to help you achieve data transfer with almost zero downtime.

How to Use Veeam Instant Recovery to Migrate Hyper-V to VMware

Before starting to migrate Hyper-V to VMware using instant recovery, making the following preparations will help the conversion go smoothly.

• Backup the source Hyper-V VM before the planned downtime window to serve as the migration base.
• During the downtime, shut down the source Hyper-V VM to prevent data changes.
• Then run the Veeam backup job again to capture the disk changes.
• Once the backup is complete, do not turn on the source VM again to avoid data inconsistencies that could affect post-migration operation and accuracy.

To perform instant recovery from Hyper-V to VMware, please follow these steps.

Step 1. Instant VM Recovery to VMware

1. Locate the backup file of the previously backed up Hyper-V VM, right-click on the VM you want to migrate, then click “Instant VM Recovery”, and then click “VMware...”.

Veeam will create a temporary instance of the virtual machine in the VMware environment and mounts the virtual machine disk file directly from the backup repository, allowing the virtual machine to boot quickly.

2. Make sure that the selected restore point matches the time when the virtual machine was shut down and the last backup was run.

3. Select a destination folder for the restored virtual machine.

4. Select a target network that is appropriate for your environment.

5. If you plan to start the virtual machine before migrating the storage, it is recommended to enable “Redirect write cache” to improve disk performance.

6. The “Secure restore” option can usually be skipped unless there is a concern about malware.

7. Keep the VM in a shutdown state and click “Finish” to initiate an instant recovery to VMware.

You can view the V2V migration during the process, and Veeam will automatically perform format conversions and other operations.

Once the virtual machine is booted, verify and configure it, such as checking the network settings for correctness, installing VMware Tools, etc., to ensure that it is running properly in the VMware environment.

Step 2. Perform Quick Migration

1. After validation, you can choose to convert the temporary VM of instant recovery to a full VM, fully copy the disk files of the virtual machine from the backup repository to the target datastore through the Quick Migration.

2. If you migrate a virtual machine to the same datastore cluster as the target of the redirected virtual disk update in the Instant Recovery wizard, the “force Veeam transport usage” checkbox must be enabled in the transport step of the Quick Migration wizard, otherwise the migrated virtual machine may be deleted.

3. Once the Quick Migration is complete, the virtual machine has been successfully migrated from Hyper-V to VMware and is ready to be booted and tested.

You can efficiently migrate Hyper-V to VMware VMs using Veeam Instant Recovery. P2V/V2V conversions are handled automatically with Veeam's built-in tools.

Alternative: Powerful Backup and Instant Recovery Software

AOMEI Cyber Backup is capable of restoring backups to a usable state in a short period of time. In case of system failure, data loss or other disaster situations, the recovery process can be initiated quickly to minimize business downtime and ensure business continuity.

• Complete VM image backups ensures that the state of the VM can be restored during recovery without having to reinstall and reconfigure various software and services.
• Rollback to a specific point in time to restore a virtual machine to its exact state, effectively dealing with various data errors or corruption situations.
• Support for restoring VMs to a different ESXi host or storage location for easy VM migration, cloning, or redeployment in a new hardware environment.
• Intuitive, centralized management console makes it easy for administrators to centrally manage backup tasks for all virtual machines.
• Automatically delete outdated backup files and frees up storage space based on user-set retention policies.

Click the following button to download the freeware.

Note:
* The instant restore feature is applicable to backup points of ESXi virtual machines. AOMEI Cyber Backup must be installed on Windows Server 2012 or higher versions of the operating system.
* The backup points of the virtual machine must be stored on the local disk.

Step 1. Create VMware ESXi VMs Backup and then start VM instant recovery.

Step 2. Create New Instant Recovery as following:

✔ Click "Task" > "Instant Recovery" > "New Instant Recovery". Here we take "Restore from task" for an example.

✔ Select Source and choose the virtual machine and backup version.

✔ Select the device to be restored to in "Restore to". Choose the target device.

✔ Set the hardware settings for the new virtual machine, such as CPU quantity, CPU Cores and memory size.

✔ Enter a name for the new virtual machine.

✔ Click "Start Restore" to start the instant restore.

Step 3. Migrate VM

✔ After creating vm instant recovery, click Start Migration on details page to return backup to production environment.

AOMEI Cyber Backup can significantly reduce business downtime and flexibly cope with a wide range of data issues due to its comprehensive and efficient backup and instant recovery. It provides a one-stop quality solution for your virtual environment.

Conclusion

Veeam's Instant Recovery can help you migrate Hyper-V backups to VMware. It should be noted that it is important to ensure data integrity and security throughout the migration process.