VMware to XenServer migration guide

Multiple scenarios and tools exist for migrating your Citrix workloads and infrastructure components from VMware to XenServer. The best combination of methods or tools will depend on what you are migrating.

This guide is meant to offer high-level steps. It is not meant to be a step-by-step guide of every task. This guide should be used along-side Citrix and XenServer product documentation for full prerequisites, system requirements, planning, tasks, etc. We recommend testing the migration in a test environment prior to migrating production workloads, and when migrating production workloads to start with a few VDAs.

Migration tools

• Conversion Manager (XCM): A virtual appliance that enables users to batch convert existing VMware virtual machines into XenServer virtual machines, with comparable networking and storage connectivity.

  Migration Scenarios: Infrastructure, Dedicated VDAs, MCS golden images

• XenCenter Import Wizard (XenCenter): A feature of XenCenter that allows importing VMs from Open Virtualization Format (OVF and OVA), disk image formats (VHD, VHDX/AVHDX, and VMDK), and XenServer XVA format. The support for VHDX/AVHDX files enables direct import of Citrix Provisioning (PVS) vDisks.

  Migration Scenarios: Infrastructure, Dedicated VDAs, MCS golden images, PVS golden image (of Non-Persistent VDAs)

• Citrix Image Portability Service (IPS): A Citrix Cloud service that simplifies the management of images across platforms. The Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops REST APIs can be used to automate the administration of resources within a Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops site.

  Migration Scenarios: Non-Persistent VDAs

Citrix VDA Migration Scenarios

Prerequisites:

• XenServer infrastructure is in place and has adequate capacity.
• Computer Active Directory (AD) accounts are provisioned, or you have the rights to provision the AD accounts.

MCS Non-Persistent Citrix VDAs

Build a new Machine Catalog with your existing golden images and add it to your delivery group.

1. Uninstall the VMware tools on your golden image.
2. Import your golden image VMs into XenServer by using XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard.
3. Install the XenServer VM Tools by using XenCenter, scripting, or third-party tools.

4. In Citrix Studio or Citrix Cloud:

   1. Create a hosting connection for your XenServer.
   2. Create a new Machine Catalog to provision new machines (with new AD accounts) using your new golden image and XenServer hosting connection.
   3. Add your newly provisioned VDAs to your existing Delivery Groups.

Make sure you do not start your golden image on VMware after it has been imported to XenServer as it might cause issues.

MCS Persistent Citrix VDAs

Import the existing VDAs from VMware to XenServer by using XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard. This scenario requires downtime.

1. Enable Maintenance Mode on the existing Machine Catalogs (or individual VDAs) from Citrix Studio.
2. Uninstall the VMware tools on your VDAs.

3. Shut down and import your existing VDA VMs to XenServer with XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard.

   If you have Firewall rules tied to the VDAs MAC address, select keep MAC address in XCM during the migration wizard.

4. Install the XenServer VM Tools by using XenCenter, scripting, or third-party tools.

5. In Citrix Studio:

   1. Create a hosting connection for your XenServer.
   2. Create a new Machine Catalog and import the newly migrated VDAs.
   3. Add your newly provisioned VDAs to your existing Delivery Groups.

Make sure that after the VDAs are migrated to XenServer you do not start the VDAs on VMware.

PVS Non-Persistent Citrix VDAs

There are two common ways to manage the golden image for a PVS Machine:

• In-place updates: This is where a vDisk is managed through the PVS versioning and updated by placing the vDisk into private mode where updates are made before assigning it back to target VMs in standard mode.
• Out-of-band updates: This mechanism relies on a separate VM to be used to manage a golden image where updates are made and then new PVS vDisk generated from the golden image and distributed to targets.

We recommend enabling the PVS-Accelerator in XenServer when using PVS-provisioned Citrix VDAs.

In-place updates

Import the PVS vDisk to XenServer using the XenCenter Import Wizard:

1. Use the XenCenter Import Wizard to import your existing PVS vDisks. This will create a new VM with a new hard drive based on the PVS vDisk.

2. Prior to booting the VM, set the has-vendor-device flag on the VM to false and the platform parameter to device_id=0002:

   In the host console, type the following commands:

   xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> has-vendor-device=false
   xe vm-param-set uuid=VM uuid platform:device_id=0002
   

3. Install the XenServer VM Tools by using XenCenter, scripting, or third-party tools.

4. Log in to the VM and run the PVS Imaging Wizard to upload the image to your PVS Server.

   In the imaging wizard, when selecting a template, ensure that the template uses the same boot method as the imported VHDX image. A mismatch will cause VM can not boot up (i.e. template uses BIOS boot but the VHDX uses UEFI boot).

5. In Citrix Studio, create a hosting connection for your XenServer.
6. From the Citrix Provisioning Console, use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard to create a new Machine Catalog using your new PVS Image and XenServer Hosting Connection.
7. In Citrix Studio, add your newly provisioned VDAs to your existing Delivery Groups.

Make sure you do not start your golden image on VMware after it has been imported to XenServer as it may cause issues.

Out-of-band updates

1. Uninstall the VMware tools on your golden image.
2. Import your golden image VMs to XenServer by using XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard.

3. Prior to booting the VM, set the has-vendor-device flag on the VM to false and the platform parameter to device_id=0002:

   In the host console, type the following commands:

   xe vm-param-set uuid=<uuid> has-vendor-device=false
   xe vm-param-set uuid=VM uuid platform:device_id=0002
   

4. Install the XenServer VM Tools by using XenCenter, scripting, or third-party tools.
5. Log in to the VM and run the PVS Imaging Wizard to upload the image to your PVS Server to create a new PVS vDisk from the new golden image.
6. In Citrix Studio, create a create a hosting connection for your XenServer.
7. From the Citrix Provisioning Console, use the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Setup Wizard to create a new Machine Catalog using your new PVS Image and XenServer Hosting Connection.
8. In Citrix Studio, add your newly provisioned VDAs to your existing Delivery Groups.

Make sure you do not start your golden image on VMware after it has been imported to XenServer as it may cause issues.

Dedicated VDAs (provisioned manually or with third-party tools)

Import the existing VDAs from VMware to XenServer using XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard. This scenario requires downtime.

1. Enable Maintenance Mode on the existing Machine Catalogs (or individual VDAs) from Citrix Studio.
2. Uninstall the VMware tools on your VDAs.

3. Shut down and import your existing VDA VMs to XenServer with XCM or XenCenter Import Wizard.

   If you have firewall rules tied to the VDAs MAC address, select keep MAC address in XCM during the migration wizard.

4. Install the XenServer VM Tools by using XenCenter, scripting, or third-party tools.

5. In Citrix Studio:

   1. Create a hosting connection for your XenServer.
   2. Create a new Machine Catalog and import the newly migrated VDAs.
   3. Add your newly provisioned VDAs to your existing Delivery Groups.

Make sure that after the VDAs are migrated to XenServer you do not start the VDAs on VMware.

Migrating Citrix infrastructure

This offers high-level guidance. Refer to the Citrix documentation for complete considerations.

• Citrix DaaS: Create VMs on XenServer for each Cloud Connector you require. Install the Citrix Cloud Connector software.

• Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops: Create VMs on XenServer for each Delivery Controller you require. Install the Citrix Delivery Controller component on the VMs and join them to your existing Site.

  Refer to the Citrix Documentation on Delivery Controllers: Delivery Controllers - Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2311.

• Storefront: Create VMs on XenServer for each Storefront server you require. Install the Storefront on the VMs and join them to your existing Storefront Server Group.

  Refer to the Citrix Documentation on Citrix Storefront: Install, set up, upgrade, and uninstall - StoreFront 2402

• SQL Database: There are multiple options for moving your SQL Database hosting your Citrix configuration. Refer to Citrix and Microsoft documentation.

  Here are a few articles for guidance:

  • Databases, Citrix Product Documentation: Databases - Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 2311
  • Migrate Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktop databases to a new SQL server

• NetScaler: Migrate the configuration of an existing NetScaler appliance to another NetScaler appliance

Other considerations

vTPM: If you require a VM to be imported to have a TPM attached, this can be added after the import of the VM through XenCenter.

AD Accounts: As part of this process, you may need to provision additional AD computer accounts, especially for MCS nonpersistent.

Disk Storage Consumption: When migrating MCS thin-provisioned disks for persistent VDAs, the amount of storage needed may be larger than expected. Each VM that is migrated will result in a full copy of all of the VM attached disks (including the content of the common parent image). The exact storage use will vary depending on the storage being used and the amount of updates made by each VM to the common image.

Sysprepping: If managing the Golden image in VMware simultaneously with the golden image that you have copied to XenServer, you should sysprep your golden image in XenServer.

Rebuild golden image: For Non-Persistent Machine Catalogs, you can consider rebuilding your golden image from scratch.

Deprovisioning VMware environment: Once testing is complete, you can remove your old VDAs from your Delivery Group and from your VMware infrastructure..

Note:

This article was produced in collaboration with Ferroque Systems.