Utilizing cloud services entails getting rid of a substantial part of your own IT infrastructure, which lowers the cost of maintenance and administration as well as increases flexibility and peak load capacity. Today, cloud solutions in demand by the market are being promoted by a large number of vendors: it is believed that cloud technologies are the future.
Business In The Clouds
According to Flexera’s Rightscale 2019 State of the Cloud Report from Flexera, 94% of respondents are already using some form of a cloud solution, and companies’ cloud spending continues to rise rapidly. Their projected public cloud spending in 2019 is 24% higher than in 2018. On average, 38% of respondents’ workload is in public clouds, while 41% is in private clouds. In small and medium-sized businesses, the proportion is different: 43% are public clouds, and 35% are private.
IT departments in companies and enterprises focus on managing cloud resources and optimizing cloud spending. 66% of enterprises already have a dedicated cloud team or a center of excellence. 21% of companies plan to organize it. IT departments prioritize cost optimization and smart cloud resource management (68%), reasoning and making decisions about which applications to use in which cloud environments (62%), and thinking about and setting policies for cloud applications (59%).
According to Oracle’s forecast, in the next ten years, up to 80% of business applications will be transferred to the cloud, almost all corporate data will migrate there, and all application development and testing will be performed in the cloud environment.
How To Get Into The Cloud? 
For a number of reasons, including the elimination of data centers, the migration of legacy workloads, or the development and operation of high-performance applications in a more adaptable setting, businesses are migrating workloads to the cloud. Running both conventional and cloud-native workloads in the cloud demands a constant high level of performance and reliability throughout the whole stack.
The “migration to the clouds” process, which involves preparing the company’s IT infrastructure for relocation to the virtual world in order to enhance service quality and lower operating costs, is the most crucial concern for many organizations that have not yet taken advantage of cloud technologies.
As a rule, migration from one local server to another (server-to-server) is relatively easy, while migration from the data center to the cloud (P2V) and from one cloud platform to another (V2V) is associated with a number of difficulties.
While the goals for migrating a cloud server are the same as for an on-premises one, the first option involves detailed planning, preparation, and processes. Next, we will talk about V2V and how to choose a V2V migration tool to avoid mistakes when migrating to the cloud.
V2V Migration: What Is It?
Virtual machine migration (VMM) technology facilitates server virtualization. Users can save money on management, maintenance, and updates by migrating their servers.
V2V migration involves transferring the operating system and data between virtual machines while accounting for host-level variations and utilizing various virtual hardware. The VMM of one physical machine receives a virtual machine that is transferred to the VMM of another physical computer. The two VMMs may be of distinct or similar types. For instance, KVM is migrating to VMware, or VMware is moving to KVM. Virtual machines may be transferred between different VM host systems using a variety of methods.
What Are V2v Migration Tools? 
Migrating from one virtual environment to another (virtual-to-virtual, V2V) is the most common way to migrate on-premises and cloud workloads.
Hypervisors such as Hyper-V and vSphere are used as tools for conducting “live” migrations. They automatically move a working virtual machine (VM) from the source server to the destination without the need to suspend or completely stop its operation.
The result is virtually no downtime. Data transfer basically consists of copying files from one server to another. This can be done before or during live migration. However, moving large datasets takes a significant amount of time, even on a local network, requiring the workload to be put into a passive state for a short period of time.
A great example of such a tool is StarWind’s V2V Converter / P2V Migrator, a free application for cloning VM, converting them between formats, and turning physical machines into virtual ones. It is used when a migration or hypervisor switch is needed. In contrast to standard converters included in hypervisors, the StarWind tool provides bi-directional conversion between all popular VM formats: VHD/VHDX, VMDK, QCOW2, and StarWind’s native IMG.
Additionally, you may move virtual machine images of your critical host quickly and without sacrificing the integrity of the data. Do you need to convert local files? Also possible with V2V.
Local V2V Migration Process
It is worth considering in more detail the general process of a typical local V2V migration.
Planning
Justify the original purpose of your transition. It’s possible that you’ve run into a tactical troubleshooting issue with a server malfunctioning that has taken the VM down, and to fix the underlying hardware issue, the VM needs to be moved to a different server. The purpose of migration can also be strategic objectives. For example, you need to decommission an outdated server and move a VM to a new server, or you want to improve performance by distributing the overall compute load across multiple target systems.
Training
Select the VMs and datasets you need to move and write down the configuration for each. Then select the appropriate target server for migration. Modern virtualization platforms have tools that allow you to automate the preparatory work, but it is still important to have detailed information about the processes that take place in the background.
Performance
Modern tools allow you to quickly deal with the real migration process. For example, using Hyper-V Manager, administrators select and connect to a source server, select a VM to move, and then use the Move Wizard to select a move type, target server, and more. When the administrator completes the Move Wizard, the migration proceeds automatically. While live migrations are designed to reduce downtime, it’s best to run them during periods of inactive application usage so that the fewest users will be affected by potential issues. If you need to pause your application for any reason, you should plan for downtime.
Testing
After the V2V migration is complete, test the application to make sure it functions properly. Migration of mission-critical workloads should include recovery strategies so that in the event of serious problems, it can be canceled and the workloads returned to their original state. If monitoring tools were applied to the original workload, they need to be updated and only then transferred after the VM. If this is not done, you can lose application monitoring, that is, you may be left without critical performance indicators.
Final touches
Ultimately, the source server can be repaired, upgraded, repurposed, or decommissioned as needed.
Also Read: The Role Of Cloud Computing In Digital Transformation
