AWS Server

Migration
Services

Oct 5, 2021

Christen Paul Zamora,

Application System Engineer
WeServ Systems International, Inc.
Contents
 Introduction
 Diagram
 Pre-requisites
 Getting started
 Server Migration Services
 Setting up the connector
 Deploying the connector
 Running the configuration script
 Configure the connector
 Configure Replication
Introduction

 In this investigation, we are going to explore how to transfer virtual

machines from Hyper V servers into AWS.
 SMS or Server Migration Services is one of the tools in AWS to lift
and shift VMs from V-Center, Hyper-V or Azure Environments.
 SMS connectors are virtual appliances which acts as a server
information collector and a replication services connector.

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Diagram

 An SMS connector is deployed in the Hyper V Server. It collects server information and transmits it to the
Server Migration Service in AWS.
 In SMS users can then issue a replication job for the candidate servers. This will in turn transmit and convert
the VMs as AMIs. Which eventually can be launched as EC2s in AWS
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Prerequisites
 You may check the General Requirements from this site.
 https://docs.aws.amazon.com/server-migration-service/latest/userguide/prereqs.html#general-requirements\
 Since we will be exploring Server Migration Services using Hyper V, please see image
below.
 We also need IAM accounts for SMS
to work. This will be discussed during
the Getting Started portion.

 Note: You need at least 8GB free left in the

Hyper V hypervisor in order for the connector
to run. Otherwise you will encounter
insufficient memory errors.

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Getting Started
 As part of the requirements for the SMS tool, we need to create an account in IAM.

 Select Users under the Access Management menu on the left-side pane. Then click on Add
Users.
 Name the User and select Access key - Programmatic Access since this account will not
logon to the console.

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Getting Started (continuation)
 Select Attach existing policies directly and search for ServerMigrationConnector. Then
tick it to attach the policy to the user.
 Click on Next. You can add tags (optional) Then click Create User to finish.

 Once the user has been created, take note of the Access Key ID and the Secret Access Key
since it will be used later. You may also download them by clicking the Download .csv
button.

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Getting Started (continuation)
 Another requirement for the SMS connector is the Active Directory / Local Account that is
used to access the Hyper V servers host OS.
 Once you have created an account on the AD or Local, add the user as a member of
Remote Management Users

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SMS Server Migration Services
 Now that we have done preparing the user accounts used by SMS, we can
now proceed with accessing the Server Migration Service site. Click on Get
started to begin.

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SMS Setting up the connector
 For the in-depth user guide we can follow this url.
 https://docs.aws.amazon.com/server-migration-service/latest/userguide/HyperV.html

 Since we are already done with Step 1 during the getting started portion. We
start with Step 2: Download and deploy the Server Migration Connector.

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SMS Deploying the connector
 As you can see below, there are different connectors that can be used for each
environment.

 Since our sample environment is in Hyper V, we will be using the Download VHD Zip for
SCVMM/Hyper-V environment.
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SMS Deploying the connector
 After the connector zipped file download completes, we need to transfer it to the Hyper V
Host and extract it. Once done, the connector can now be imported.

 Importing the virtual appliance should be as easy as clicking Next. You may be prompted
with the virtual switch from a list and the location for the checkpoints if the host is not
configured with an E:\ Drive.
 Just remember the 8GB Free requirement to run the virtual appliance.
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SMS Running the configuration script
 After deployment, you may run the vm to check for errors. If there are no errors during
startup, we can continue and just go back to the connector setup later.
 We can now proceed to Step 3, 4 and 5.

 We go back to the AWS console. Click on the Link for Step 3, you will be redirected to the
link below. Download the following files and transfer them in the Hyper V host.
 https://docs.aws.amazon.com/server-migration-service/latest/userguide/HyperV.html#hyperv-script

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SMS Running the configuration script
 After downloading and transferring the script files and the hash textfiles to the Hyper V
host. We can check the script file if it is still valid using the commands in image below.
Open powershell and run the Get-FileHash command as follows.

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SMS Running the configuration script
 Upon confirming the hash value of the powershell script.
 Issue the command Get-AuthenticodeSignature aws-sms-hyperv-setup.ps1 | Select *
 Confirm if the script is Valid and and that the signature is verified.

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SMS Running the configuration script
 Run the script: .\aws-sms-hyperv-setup.ps1
 On the menu option select 1 since we are managing a standalone Hyper-V.
 You may choose option 2 or 3 if you are running Hyper V with SCVMM

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SMS Running the configuration script
 Input the IP address of the connector
 You may check the address from the host GUI under networking

 Select yes

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SMS Running the configuration script
 Press Enter to finish configuration. This covers Step 3 to 5. We are now ready
to configure the SMS connector virtual appliance.

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SMS Configure the connector
 Step 6 is the configuration the connector through the connector site.

 Open a browser that can connect to the virtual appliance

 https://<ip of the connector>
 https://192.168.202.135 is the site created for this investigation. Opening should yield a similar result.

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SMS Configure the connector
 The first step of the setup is to accept the
License Agreement. Tick the checkbox to
click Next.

 If by chance, you haven’t configured the password for the site through the virtual
appliance. The site will prompt you to input a password.
 The next time you access the site it will prompt you to enter your password.
 You may also do this on the connector vm the account to access the vm is ec2-user with ec2pass as its
password.
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SMS Configure the connector
 Step 3 is just information and Step 4 for is for handling Logs and Upgrades click Next if
they are acceptable.
 On Step 5 we need to provide the following.
 The region where the vms are to be migrated
 The access key and the secret key. These are the credentials we prepared in IAM during the Getting Started
phase
 Supply all the information to continue

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SMS Configure the connector
 Select Microsoft Hyper V then click Next

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SMS Configure the connector
 Use the service account we created during
the Getting Started phase.
 In the example I used a domain account
named sms
 Input the hostname, FQDN or IP of the
Hyper V host on the box and click on
View Cert button. Click on Trust to have it
validated and to continue.
 The Hyper V host should be accessible to the
connector for this to work

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SMS Configure the connector
 Once everything has been validated. The connector is now usable and should be accessible
in AWS

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SMS Configure the connector
 A working connector should look like the one below

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SMS Configure Replication
 Going back to AWS Console on the SMS GUI you can check the health of your connector.

 Unfortunately during the investigation I could only manage to do until this part. The connector really requires
8GB ram otherwise it will hang and discontinue replication.
 For the latter part I will be using video screen shots of successful deployments

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SMS Configure Replication
 To see the servers, click on Import Server Catalog. This will populate the Servers frame
with potential virtual machines to migrate.

 Click on Import to begin

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SMS Configure Replication
 After clicking Import the list of servers in the Hyper V host will be visible on screen as
seen below.

 Ticking the checkbox next to the vm will enable the Create replication job button. Click on
it to start a replication job.

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SMS Configure Replication
 The Create replication jobs screen will open. Over to the right, you can select which
license type you can use. You can choose between Auto / AWS / Bring Your Own License.
Click next to continue.

 We can determine the replication as a One time replication or to Replicate every x number
of Hrs

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SMS Configure Replication
 There are a couple of options for the job as follows. For now we will use the defaults and
click Next

 The next step is the preview of the choices from here we can click Create Replication

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SMS Configure Replication
 After the replication job has been done we can now view the replication using the View
Replication jobs button below

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SMS Configure Replication
 The job will the Replication job ID, the VM to be replicated and its current state.

 Note: vms with checkpoints will fail on replication. You must remove checkpoints in Hyper
on servers that will be migrated to AWS.
 You can view the status of the replication job by ticking the checkbox beside the job ID

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SMS Configure Replication
 Once replication completes it will create a bucket in S3 and an AMI (Amazon Machine
Image). You can access the AMI from EC2 and under Images > AMIs

 From here we can now Launch a server using the AMI that was created during the
replication.
 From this we have now accomplished transferring a vm image from our on-premises
Hyper-V server into AWS using Server Migration Services.

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