Seamless VMware Workload Migration to Microsoft Azure Using Zerto: A Hypervisor-Based Replication Approach

Authors

Venkata Raman Immidisetti

Abstract

The adoption of hybrid cloud architectures is strategic for enterprises integrating on-premises VMware environments with Microsoft Azure for enhanced scalability, flexibility, and disaster recovery (DR). Organizations face challenges migrating workloads to different Azure regions due to conflicts between Azure Site Recovery (ASR) and Azure Migrate, which use agent-based replication. These conflicts cause operational inefficiencies, replication failures, and data inconsistencies, complicating cloud migration efforts. This study investigates Zerto as an efficient alternative for workload migration and disaster recovery in hybrid cloud environments. Unlike agent-based tools, Zerto's hypervisor-based replication eliminates the need for multiple agents, ensuring a seamless migration process. Through block-level replication, journal-based recovery, and consistency grouping, Zerto enables near-zero Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and minimal Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), ensuring high data integrity and reduced downtime. The paper presents a methodology for migrating VMware workloads to Azure using Zerto, including pre-migration assessment, deployment of replication components, data synchronization, failover, and post-migration validation. A case study highlights Zerto's efficacy over agent-based solutions, demonstrating its ability to reduce complexity, mitigate migration risks, and enhance performance. By leveraging Zerto's unified disaster recovery and migration capabilities, enterprises can achieve seamless cloud transitions while maintaining business continuity, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness

Keywords

Azure Migrate, Azure Site Recovery (ASR), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), Hybrid cloud, Migration tools, Zerto, Cloud migration, Agent conflicts, Minimal downtime and On-premises to cloud migration.

Seamless VMware Workload Migration to Microsoft Azure Using Zerto: A Hypervisor-Based Replication Approach. Venkata Raman Immidisetti. 2022. IJIRCT, Volume 8, Issue 5. Pages 1-6. https://www.ijirct.org/viewPaper.php?paperId=2502083