Moving from VMware to Hyper-V: a practical checklist

With VMware licensing changing, a lot of teams are looking at Hyper-V. The move is very doable, but it pays to plan it properly. Here is the checklist we work through with clients.

Before you start

• Inventory every VM: its OS, resources, dependencies and who owns it.
• Check guest operating systems and applications are supported on Hyper-V.
• Decide on your target: standalone hosts, a failover cluster, or Azure Local.
• Agree maintenance windows and a rollback plan for each workload.

During the migration

Start with low-risk workloads to prove the process, then move in waves. Convert disks, install integration services, and check networking and storage performance on each VM before you call it done.

Migrate in waves, and test as you go. The quiet ones are where surprises hide.

After you move

• Set up monitoring and alerting for hosts, storage and key services.
• Re-test backups and run a real restore.
• Update documentation and hand over runbooks to your team.
• Decommission the old environment once everything has settled.