Containerized migration overview

Introduction

SMC containerizes servers and business applications through machine-level and application migration, pushing them to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR) for final deployment in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK). The following diagram shows the relationships between the involved services and the migration workflow.

1. Install the SMC client on the source server.

2. Configure the migration settings and start the migration. After the migration is complete, the service automatically generates a container image and stores it in the personal edition of ACR.

3. Deploy the application in Container Service for Kubernetes.

Migration scenarios

• Machine-level migration

  Containerize the system and all application data from a physical server, virtual machine, or cloud platform server into an image and push it to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR). This is ideal for system-level disaster recovery.

• Application migration

  Containerize specific applications from a physical server, virtual machine, or cloud platform server into an image and push it to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR). This is ideal for microservice containerization.

  Important

  Application migration is an invitational preview feature. Contact us to apply for the whitelist. Supported application versions include:

  • Java Tomcat

  • Java Tomee

  • Java JBoss (standalone mode)

  • ASP.NET Core 3.1 and ASP.NET 5/6/7/8

Limitations

• Only servers that run a Linux operating system on the x86 architecture can be migrated to a container image. Supported operating system versions include:

  • CentOS

  • Ubuntu

  • RedHat

  • Alibaba Cloud Linux

• The application migration feature is available only to whitelisted users. To request access, contact us. The supported application versions include:

  • Java Tomcat

  • Java TomEE

  • Java JBoss (standalone mode)

  • ASP.NET Core 3.1 and .NET 5/6/7/8

• You can only migrate images to an image repository in a personal edition instance of Container Registry (ACR).

• Containerized migration currently does not support data disk migration. The system excludes the /mnt directory and all data disk mount points by default. The resulting target disk contains only one default partition. You do not need to adjust the existing partition structure.

  To migrate data from a data disk to Alibaba Cloud, you can use FTP or SCP, or manually back up the data to Object Storage Service (OSS) or Apsara File Storage NAS. For more information, see Select a file transfer method and The ossutil 1.0 command-line tool.

• When using the application migration mode, do not restart the application process during the migration. If the process ID changes, the migration task will fail.

Costs

• While SMC is a free service, using Alibaba Cloud ECS resources, such as creating an intermediate instance during migration, incurs a small fee. For details, see SMC billable items.

• The container images generated by containerized migration are stored in the Personal Edition of Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR). This edition is designed for individual developers, is currently available in select regions, and is free to use during the public beta period.

• The specific costs of deploying applications in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) vary based on the cluster type and cloud product usage.

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Migration guide: Containerized migration