Migrating a Windows VM

This page describes how to migrate Windows VMs to GKE with Migrate to Containers. To perform the migration, you use a processing cluster you created with the steps in Installing Migrate to Containers.

Note: For a complete step-by-step tutorial on this process, see the hands-on lab Migrate to Containers: Windows.

The steps to migrate with Migrate to Containers:

1. Add a migration source.

   You start a migration by configuring a source that represents the source platform from which you are migrating. If you already have a source from a previous migration and the VMs you're migrating are from the same source, you can re-use it.

   Note: Windows migration only supports Compute Engine as a source. However, you can use Migrate for Compute Engine to migrate or clone a Windows VM from other sources into Compute Engine, and then migrate the resulting VM. The migrated Windows VM does not have to be configured to run on Compute Engine.

2. Create a migration plan.

   Create the migration plan that you then review and customize before executing the migration.

3. Customize your migration plan.

   Edit the migration plan for your specific requirements before executing the migration.

4. Execute the migration.

   Execute the migration to extract the container artifacts, which include the Dockerfile and other files necessary to build a container image.

5. Monitor the migration.

   Monitor the progress of a migration and inspect migration activity logs.

6. Build a Windows container image

   Use the generated artifacts to build a Windows container that you can then deploy to a cluster.

Supported features for migration

Migrate to Containers: Windows currently supports migrating IIS .Net framework sites.
You may split the sites into single purpose images, or group them as you wish.

To have a better indication of which sites can be migrated on a soure VM, try running the Mfit tool.

Next Steps

• Add a migration source