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CloudEndure as Lift & Shift solution

Written by Roman Šedivý | April 9, 2021

Cloud migration does not have to be a complex and time consuming process. CloudEndure Migration is a highly automated lift-and-shift solution that saves cost of migrating applications to AWS. This tool simplifies and automates migrations from physical, virtual, and cloud-based infrastructure to AWS. Let me show you how to use CloudEndure in your work and save time and money.

CloudEndure Licencing

CloudEndure Migration license allows you to use the following agent installation for 90 days. During this period, you can start the replication of your source machines, launch target machines, conduct unlimited tests, and perform a scheduled cutover to complete your migration.

After this free 90-day period, your machines will stop replicating and new target machines cannot be launched. If you did not complete migration within the free 90-day period, you can still migrate at no cost by reinstalling the CloudEndure agent on the applicable machines with a new CloudEndure Migration account. This will allow you to perform replication, testing, and cutover for another free period of 90 days.

7 things you should know during the project setup for your replication

1. Setup project page

The Setup page allows you to list important information about your Project and you can define the replication and notification settings for your selected Project. Setup is very simple. Let me show you some steps you will need to be aware of.

2. IAM Setup

AWS Secret and Access Key are required, so IAM user needs to be created with particular policies. Policies can be obtained during the setup shown on picture below.

You will need to create a new policy and attach it to the user. After that you can generate an AWS Access Key and a Secret Key. Secret Key can be viewed only once during the creation. Save it to a secure place when only you or well trusted people have access.

3. CloudEndure agent and Token

CloudEndure Agent installation does not require a reboot or any interruption to the applications that are running on your Source machines.

This token is needed during the installation of Cloud Endure agent. The token will be generated during project setup. It can be re-generated whenever you need to. In spite of this you will need to reinstall all installed the agents.

An Installation Token is a unique string of characters and looks like this:

D128-DCD5-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-****-911A-3255

4. What is CloudEndure Replication Server?

CloudEndure Replication Server is a kind of staging area which consists of both lightweight EC2 instances that act as Replication Servers and low-cost staging EBS volumes. Each source disk is mapped to an identically sized, low-cost EBS volume in the staging area. The Replication Servers receive data from the installed CloudEndure Agent on the source machine and write this data into staging EBS volumes. One Replication Server can handle multiple source machines replicating concurrently. Keep in mind that Replication Server has to be accessible on 443 and 1500 ports.

5. What CloudEndure Replication Server instance type I should choose?

You can leave it by default. That means it will automatically use t3.small. Higher instance type will cost you more money.

6. What is CloudEndure Converter Server?

This is the server that converts the disks to boot and run in the Target infrastructure. Also it is doing the process of converting machines from Source hardware configuration to Target hardware configuration. It makes bootloader changes, injects hypervisor drivers and installs cloud tools.

7. What CloudEndure Converter instance type should I choose?

I recommend you to keep this setting by default. Unless you want to speed up the conversion. Higher instance type will cost you more money.

What else you should know about your project setup

  • Changing migration source during ongoing replication

This change will cause all current machines to be removed from the CloudEndure User Console: you will need to reinstall the CloudEndure Agent on all the machines and Data Replication will restart from zero.

  • Setting up disks for target machines!

By default Cloud Endure will choose io disks for your target machine. So just keep on your mind and if you don't need it you can change it manually at you Blueprint tap of each instance.

Let's go to CloudEndure agent

You will need to install CloudEndure Agent on the selected source machines. Installation does not require restart. It wont take any noticeable effect on your system performance.

Windows Cloud Endure Agent installation

To install Cloud Endure client you will need to get an installation token. This can be obtained during the setup of the project in the Cloud Endure console.

Then for Windows installation run replace “yourtoken” by your generated token

sudo python ./installer_linux.py -t $yourtoken --no-prompt

Linux CloudEndure Agent installation

You will need to download the python file. Easy way to do it is to have wget installed.

Next step you need to install Python. Python 2 (2.4 or above) or Python 3 (3.0 or above).

Then for Linux installation run replace “yourtoken” by your generated token

sudo python ./installer_linux.py -t $yourtoken --no-prompt

Do I need to open any inbound and outbound ports? Yes. As I mentioned above ports 443 and 1500 have to open to communicate from source machine to Cloud Endure replication server.

 

Data Replication

How does it work?

Source: https://aws.amazon.com

After installing the agent into the VMs machines. Data are automatically replicated from your source environment to your Replication Server running in AWS.

Machine replication status

Continuous Data Replication

This status is signalizing real-time, asynchronous, block-level replication.

Lag

It is a delay between the changes that occur on the Source and the replication of that changes to the Target. Lag appears when replication does not occur for a certain period of time.

Potential cause:

  • Make sure that the Source machine is up and running.
  • Make sure that CloudEndure services are up and running.
  • Make sure that TCP Port 1500 is not blocked outbound from the Source to the Replication Server.
  • If the MAC address of the Source had changed, that would require a reinstallation of the CloudEndure Agent.
  • If the Source machine was rebooted recently or the CloudEndure services were restarted, the disks are re-read after this and until it’s finished, the Lag will grow.
  • If the Source machine had a spike of write operations, the Lag will grow until CloudEndure manages to flush all the written data to the Target Replication Server.

Source:https://docs.cloudendure.com/

Getting ready for running EC2 instance

What is Machine Blueprint?

Blueprint is a set of settings in what configuration you want to launch a Target machine for the selected Source machine.

Test mode vs. Cut over mode

Before you migrate your Source machines into the Target infrastructure, I recommend you to test your replicating servers, before you make the cut over. The Test Mode action can launch your server in the Target infrastructure for the Source machine you selected to do testing. By testing your replication server, you can verify that your Source machines are working properly in the Target environment. The CloudEndure console archives the date when you did the last test or you haven't done any.

CloudEndure Progress

You can watch your converting progress during the migration and review for possible errors.

 

The last word

With CloudEndure, an agent-based solution, I could easily migrate all applications and databases that were running on supported versions of Windows and Linux operating systems.

CloudEndure also supports common databases, including Oracle and SQL Server, and mission-critical applications such as SAP.

Sources:

https://docs.aws.amazon.com

https://docs.cloudendure.com/