RackWare RMM Getting Started for IBM Cloud

June 2023

Summary

RackWare's RMM Server Migration solution provides an easy, automated, and simplified process to migrate existing workloads from your current location to IBM Cloud. The supported use cases but not limited to are:

  1. VMware virtual machine (On-premises) to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

  2. VMware virtual machine (IBM Cloud classic) to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

  3. Hyper-V virtual machine (On-premises, IBM Cloud Classic) to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

  4. On-premises physical machines to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

  5. GCP, AWS, Azure, virtual machines and OCI Baremetal to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

  6. IBM Cloud classic bare metal to IBM Cloud classic bare metal

  7. IBM Cloud classic bare metal to IBM Cloud VPC bare metal

Supported operating systems

  • CentOS/Oracle Linux 5.2 through 5.11

  • RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux 6.0 through 6.10

  • RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux 7.x

  • RHEL/CentOS/Oracle Linux 8.x

  • SLES 11 (including 32-bit version)

  • SLES 12 (no btrfs)

  • Ubuntu 10, 12 (including 32-bit version), 14, 16, 18, 20,22

  • Debian 8, 9, 10,11

  • Windows 2008 R2, 2012, 2016, 2019, 2022 (Beta)

VMware virtual machine (On-Premise) to IBM Cloud VPC virtual servers

To implement a data center transformation, the RackWare Management Module (RMM) migration solution provides a seamless virtual-to-virtual re-platforming for VMware virtual machine (VM) to IBM Cloud® virtual server instance migration. It allows the adoption of existing capabilities of IBM Cloud. Its intuitive GUI allows you to move the OS, application, and data from VMware ESXi to IBM Cloud VPC virtual server instance.

This guide shows you how to complete a migration from your on-premises VMware VM to IBM Cloud VPC.

Step 1: Prerequisites for RMM Install

Prior to installing RMM, you must have a properly configured VPC instance. Review the Getting Started with VPC guide for more information.

The RMM solution handles the OS, application, and data movement. It does not need to set up a VPC target side; you need to handle the setup. You first set up the VPC infrastructure. At a bare minimum, you must set up a VPC, subnets, and the corresponding virtual server instances that you are planning to migrate. The new target virtual server instance profile (vCPU and vMemory) does not need to match the source. However, as for the storage, it needs to be the same or greater in size.

Note: This document does not provide the details for setting up the VPC infrastructure. It is described in each of the relevant VPC product document pages.

1. Create a VPC.

2. Create subnets.

3. Order the virtual server instance.

  • SSH key (RMM SSH keys need to be added in addition to bastion SSH key)

  • Operating system name (Linux or Windows and their respective version)

  • Security groups

  • Secondary volume

Your source and target server must communicate with each other and the RMM. This can be done over the public internet with public IPs and NAT, or with a private network. If you don’t have a private network, you must utilize either a VPN or Direct Link 2.0:

  • Use the Direct Link 2.0 connection to IBM Cloud. It is a costly solution and can be considered only if Direct Link 2.0 is already present.

Testing communication between RMM, source, and target is recommended.

Step 2: Deploy RMM

The RMM tool is available in the IBM Cloud catalog. After you deploy, a virtual server with RMM software is installed into your VPC of choice. The RMM server has a public IP address for connectivity and a default login.

Deploy the RMM server from the IBM Cloud catalog.

  1. After you deploy, log in to the RMM server.

  2. In the RMM server, change the default password, create users, and create an SSH key.

  3. Upload the SSH key to IBM Cloud VPC.

Step 3: Obtain Licensing from RackWare

1. Obtain licenses from RackWare by emailing the generated preinstall file to RackWare licensing. All IBM VPC customers are entitled to two 90 day NFR test licenses. Production licenses can be purchased through an authorized Rackware partner.

2. To generate a preinstall file in /etc/rackware, run the following command:

$ rwadm relicense

3. Copy file from /etc/rackware and send it to [email protected] as an attachment.

4. After receiving a valid license, download the license file to /etc/rackware. Restart the services to apply the license by running the following command:

$ rwadm restart

5. Verify the license by running the following command and return the output to [email protected]

$ rw rmm show

Step 4: Prepare source and target servers

Before starting the migration, RMM server needs to SSH into the virtual machines. Thus, the RMM public SSH keys need to be copied on both the source and target servers.

Note: For Windows OS, you need to download the SSH key utility. You can download it from RMM server.

Note: For Windows OS, the user is SYSTEM and you must key in the RMM SSH key here to authenticate for both source and target servers.

Note: If you use the auto-provision feature, there is no need to set up a target. Only the friendly name for the target server is required.

Step 5: Set up and provision VPC and virtual server instances

RMM can automatically provision a virtual server instance of VPC. Enable the wave level setting Autoprovision and then configure RMM with necessary details. Use these steps to use the auto-provision feature:

Setting up a environment - Ensure that your VPC, subnet, SSH keys and other necessary cloud components are set up before adding the envrionment in RMM.

1. Log in to the RackWare web console.

2. In the RackWare web console, navigate to Configuration > Environment

3. When you add an environment, enter a name and select IBM Cloud VPC for the Cloud Provider. Select the region where you want to auto-provision the virtual server instance, and enter your IBM Cloud API key.

4. Click Add.

Creating a wave and replication

A wave contains a single host or multiple hosts that will be migrated. For this migration, you need to create one or more waves, provide information about the hosts in the wave, and then start the wave.

1. In the RackWare web console, navigate to Waves > Create Wave

2. When you create a wave, select Target Type as Autoprovision > Select the Environment created above

3. Enter source and target details.

Note: If the source machine has Linux operating system and it has a boot volume greater than 100 GB then leave ‘Provision disk’ textbox empty and select Convert to LVM option. This will create additional disks of the required size and will convert all eligible volumes to LVM on the target. In the case of Windows, no action is required. It will be taken care of automatically by RMM.

1. After you enter your source and target information, you need to provide your IBM Cloud VPC information.

2. From the edit option in Actions menu of your source, select the IBM Cloud VPC Options tab, enter the relevent information, and click Modify.

3. Run the replication.

4. Ensure that your VPC, subnet, and other necessary cloud components are set up before you add a cloud user in RMM.

Step 6: Set up RMM waves from template (optional)

You can migrate servers one by one or run multiple, simultaneous migrations. If you are running multiple, simultaneous migrations, then download the CSV template from the RMM server and populate the appropriate fields.

  1. Log in to the RMM server.

  2. Create a Wave and define Wave name.

  3. If there are multiple hosts, download the template, complete the appropriate fields, and then upload the template.

  4. Select the Wave name to enter source and target information.

  5. Select the "+" sign.

  6. Add source IP address or FQDN and add source username.

  7. Target Type = Existing system

  8. Sync Type = Direct sync

  9. Add target IP address or FQDN.

  10. Add a target-friendly name, and add a target username.

  11. Start the migration.

The username field for the Linux environment is root. The username field for the Windows environment is SYSTEM.

Step 7: Validate your migration

Before decommissioning the source server, it is imperative to validate the target server. The following list is not exhaustive, but suggests some of the items to validate:

  • Application

  • Licensing

  • Reachability (host-level configuration changes)

  • Remove RMM SSH key after migration successful

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