News

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 2.0 Allows Migrations to Azure VMs

New version of the VMware-to-Hyper-V conversion tool allows VM migrations right up to the cloud.

• By Michael Domingo
• 04/08/2014

Microsoft's virtualization push along every line of its business has been strong and growing, and it continues to grow. A blog post from the Microsoft Server and Cloud Platform team today cites an IDC study showing Hyper-V usage among VMware customers has been precipitous, with Hyper-V gaining at "four times the growth of VMware's ESX over the past three years."

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter might have a part in that growth and and so the company is continuing its push with Version 2, which adds support for VMware vCenter and ESXI version 5.5, as well as virtual hardware support, and expands the number of Linux guest OSes that can be migrated: CentOS, Debian, Oracle, Red Hat Enterprise, SuSE, and Ubuntu.

Two new features are highlighted as well, with the first being the ability to convert on-premises VMware VMs to Azure VMs with a simple wizard to semi-automate the process. The other feature is a PowerShell interface that allows many of the migration processes to be scripted and automated within System Center Orchestrator and other Microsoft tools.

The post also alludes to the release of a version 3 around the third quarter that will allow physical-to-virtual machine conversion for supported versions of Windows.

File this under "Preemptive marketing strike against Microsoft: Remember that joint program that VMware has with Google to offer Google Chromebooks sporting VMware's Horizon DaaS? The promotion that is running today -- the last day of Windows XP support -- is $200 off Chromebooks for Business. The offer is good for U.S. customers of Horizon DaaS only. The offer expires June 30, 2014. 

Citrix announced a similar deal that provides a 25 percent discount on Chromebooks for Business to anyone who purchased Citrix XenApp Platinum licensing. That deal runs to September 30, 2014.