We have a ProxMox install with a few VMs. We'd like to move them to our ESXi system. I was hoping there was a way to restore a ProxMox backup to a VMware-compatible VM. Any hope?
@rwhitney welcome to the forums! Ok, so let's start with a few questions that first I'm curious about. What functionality or limitations did you see with Proxmox? I am definitely a VMware fan and have been using it for two decades now, but I am always curious what the driving factors are behind any move to a different platform.
Also, what types of VMs do you need to move? Are these Windows machines, Linux, or a combination? What version of Proxmox are you currently running? Also, do you already have your VMware vSphere environment stood up? Are you running vCenter Server along with ESXi, or just ESXi?
Part is familiarity - been using ESXi for quite a while. Also, we use VEEAM Backup & Replication, which makes the ProxMox tools appear privative. Bottom line - I don't want 2 virtualization systems. So I'm settling on the one I know.
@rwhitney I know you have probably Googled around, but there is a way to perform a low-level conversion in Proxmox with the qemu-based disk to VMDK. See this official Proxmox forum post on the conversion process:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/how-to-convert-vm-from-proxmox-to-vmware-vsphere.110976/
However, you may be looking for more automated approaches that are less cumbersome (I know I would). You may have seen that you can use the new VMware vCenter Converter 6.6 Beta, that is currently free to download. You will need to sign up for the beta though, but one thing that caught my attention with the recent 6.6 release from the official page:
"vCenter Converter 6.6 closes important gaps from functional perspective, by finally providing the capability to convert KVM-based workloads, including AHV and RHV formats. We are also covering the support for RHEL 8 & 9 as source OS, as well as latest Ubuntu versions: 22.04 and 20.04."
https://blogs.vmware.com/code/2024/01/22/vcenter-converter-6-6-beta-is-now-live/
Also, I am going to do some playing around in my lab, BDRSuite by Vembu also supports KVM backups and they have the ability to convert KVM to VMware. You can backup 10 VMs with their free license. I will do some testing on that front and see what the options are there.