IBM Cloud Docs
Migrating workloads to VCF as a Service with VCDA

Migrating workloads to VCF as a Service with VCDA

Deliver simple, secure, and cost-effective migration support with VMware Cloud Director Availability (VCDA).

Both migration and disaster recovery support are available when you install the VCDA service. For more information about disaster recovery configurations, see Protecting workload data in VCF as a Service with VCDA.

The VCDA service is included by default in all multitenant virtual data centers (VDCs) and optionally included in your single-tenant VCF as a Service Cloud Director site order at no charge. For a VCDA disaster recovery configuration, a monthly charge is incurred per protected virtual machine (VM).

IBM Cloud® for VMware Cloud Foundation as a Service with VCDA supports several migration scenarios:

  • Migrate vCenter virtual machine workloads from on-premises and vCenter Server environments to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) as a Service over the public or private IBM® network.
  • Migrate workloads from VMware Shared to VCF as a Service.
  • Migrate workloads from VCF as a Service single-tenant and multitenant instances to another VCF as a Service instance.

IBM provides public instance endpoints with VCDA. Endpoints are used to access the VCDA web interface and also to migrate workloads. You can request new endpoints for private connections for an additional charge. With private endpoints, you can migrate workloads into VCF as a Service by using the IBM Cloud private network to improve consistency and security. Cloud-to-cloud migrations from both VMware Shared and from VCF as a Service to VCF as a Service are over the private network.

Accessing the VMware Cloud Director Availability console

When you are ready to complete your migration or data recovery configuration, you can access the VCDA console from the Add-on services tab of a virtual data center instance details page for both multitenant and single-tenant instances.

Procedure to access the VMware Cloud Director Availability console from the instance

  1. In the VMware Solutions console, click Resources > VCF as a Service from the left navigation pane.
  2. Click the Virtual data center tab. Then, click the instance name.
  3. Click the Add-on services tab on the instance details page.
  4. On the VMware Cloud Director Availability service, click Open VCDA.
  5. Use a user with the Organization Administrator role to log in to the VCDA console. A newly provisioned virtual data center's admin user has the role by default.

Alternatively, you can access the VCDA console through the Cloud Director site details page. For more information, see Viewing migration details.