Containerized migration overview

Introduction

SMC containerizes servers and business applications through machine-level migration and application migration. The resulting container images are pushed to Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR). From there, they can be deployed to Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK). The following diagram illustrates the service relationships 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 system automatically generates a container image and stores it in the Personal edition of Alibaba Cloud Container Registry (ACR).

3. Deploy the application in Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) to complete the migration.

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 method 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 method is ideal for microservice containerization.

  Important

  Application migration is in invitational preview. 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

• You can migrate only servers that run a Linux operating system on the x86 architecture to a container image. Supported operating systems include:

  • CentOS

  • Ubuntu

  • RedHat

  • Alibaba Cloud Linux

• Application migration is available only to whitelisted users. To request access, contact us. 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 migrate images only 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, use FTP or SCP, or manually back up the data to Object Storage Service (OSS) or File Storage NAS. For more information, see Select a file transfer method and The ossutil 1.0 command-line tool.

• In application migration mode, do not restart the application process during the migration. A change in the process ID will cause the migration task to fail.

Migration costs

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

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

• The specific costs of deploying applications to Container Service for Kubernetes (ACK) depend on the cluster type and your use of cloud products.

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Migration guide: Containerized migration