Create an Azure VMware Solution assessment

This article describes how to create an Azure VMware Solution assessment for on-premises VMs in a VMware vSphere environment with Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment.

Azure Migrate helps you to migrate to Azure. Azure Migrate provides a centralized hub to track discovery, assessment, and migration of on-premises infrastructure, applications, and data to Azure. The hub provides Azure tools for assessment and migration, as well as Partner independent software vendor (ISV) offerings.

Before you start

• Create an Azure Migrate project.
• Add the Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment tool if you've already created a project.
• Set up an Azure Migrate appliance for VMware vSphere, which discovers the on-premises servers, and sends metadata and performance data to Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment. Learn more.
• Import the server metadata in comma-separated values (CSV) format or import your RVTools XLSX file.

Azure VMware Solution (AVS) Assessment overview

There are four types of assessments you can create using Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment.

There are two types of sizing criteria that you can use to create Azure VMware Solution (AVS) assessments:

Run an Azure VMware Solution (AVS) assessment

1. In Servers, databases and web apps, select Assess and migrate servers.

2. In Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment, select Assess.

3. In Assess servers > Assessment type, select Azure VMware Solution (AVS).

4. In Discovery source:

   • If you discovered servers using the appliance, select Servers discovered from Azure Migrate appliance.
   • If you discovered servers using an imported CSV or RVTools file, select Imported servers.

5. Select Edit to review the assessment properties.

   

6. In Assessment properties > Target Properties:

   • In Target location, specify the Azure region to which you want to migrate.
     • Size and cost recommendations are based on the location that you specify.
   • The Storage type is defaulted to vSAN and Azure NetApp Files (ANF) - Standard, ANF - Premium, and ANF - Ultra tiers. ANF is an external storage type in AVS that will be used when storage is the limiting factor considering the configuration/performance of the incoming VMs. When performance metrics are provided using the Azure Migrate appliance or the CSV, the assessment selects the tier that satisfies the performance requirements of the incoming VMs’ disks. If the assessment is performed using a RVTools file or without providing performance metrics like throughput and IOPS, ANF - Standard tier is used for assessment by default.
   • In Reserved Instances, specify whether you want to use reserve instances for Azure VMware Solution nodes when you migrate your VMs.
   • If you select to use a reserved instance, you can't specify 'Discount (%). Learn more.

7. In VM Size:

   • The Node type is defaulted to AV36. Azure Migrate recommends the number of nodes needed to migrate the servers to Azure VMware Solution.
   • In FTT setting, RAID level, select the Failure to Tolerate and RAID combination. The selected FTT option, combined with the on-premises server disk requirement, determines the total vSAN storage required in AVS.
   • In CPU Oversubscription, specify the ratio of virtual cores associated with one physical core in the AVS node. Oversubscription of greater than 4:1 might cause performance degradation, but can be used for web server type workloads.
   • In Memory overcommit factor, specify the ratio of memory over commit on the cluster. A value of 1 represents 100% memory use, 0.5, for example, is 50%, and 2 would be using 200% of available memory. You can only add values from 0.5 to 10 up to one decimal place.
   • In Dedupe and compression factor, specify the anticipated deduplication and compression factor for your workloads. Actual value can be obtained from on-premises vSAN or storage config and this might vary by workload. A value of 3 would mean 3x so for 300 GB disk only 100 GB storage would be used. A value of 1 would mean no dedupe or compression. You can only add values from 1 to 10 up to one decimal place.

8. In Node Size:

   • In Sizing criterion, select if you want to base the assessment on static metadata, or on performance-based data. If you use performance data:

     • In Performance history, indicate the data duration on which you want to base the assessment
     • In Percentile utilization, specify the percentile value you want to use for the performance sample.

   • In Comfort factor, indicate the buffer you want to use during assessment. This accounts for issues like seasonal usage, short performance history, and likely increases in future usage. For example, if you use a comfort factor of two:

     Component	Effective utilization	Add comfort factor (2.0)
     Cores	2	4
     Memory	8 GB	16 GB

9. In Pricing:

   • In Offer, Azure offer you're enrolled in is displayed. The Assessment estimates the cost for that offer.
   • In Currency, select the billing currency for your account.
   • In Discount (%), add any subscription-specific discounts you receive on top of the Azure offer. The default setting is 0%.

10. Select Save if you make changes.

    

11. In Assess Servers, select Next.

12. In Select servers to assess > Assessment name > specify a name for the assessment.

13. In Select or create a group > select Create New and specify a group name.

    

14. Select the appliance, and select the servers you want to add to the group. Then select Next.

15. In Review + create assessment, review the assessment details, and select Create Assessment to create the group and run the assessment.

    Note

    For performance-based assessments, we recommend that you wait at least a day after starting discovery before you create an assessment. This provides time to collect performance data with higher confidence. Ideally, after you start discovery, wait for the performance duration you specify (day/week/month) for a high-confidence rating.

Next steps

• Learn how to use dependency mapping to create high confidence groups.
• Learn more about how Azure VMware Solution assessments are calculated.