StarWind Software

Hi Team,
I am unable to find clarification on a prerequisite in the StarWind documentation.
We are planning a migration from a virtual server hosted on ESXi to Azure. We have installed the free version of StarWind V2V Converter on a jump server in ESXi to convert VMware VMDK images to Azure-compatible VHD format.
Could you please confirm whether the converter requires read-only access to the source VM disks, or read/write permissions? I could not find this detail on your website.
Request you to kindly confirm via email or share a relevant reference URL from your documentation.
Thanks in advance,
Sukhdeep

1. Pre-Requisites of StarWind V2V server
Category Specification / Requirement
Permissions Local Administrator access on StarWindV2v server
vCenter Access “Read-Only” account with Guest Operation privileges (Except Delete permission)

Welcome to the StarWind Forum!
Check this out https://www.starwindsoftware.com/resour ... -overview/
While the software is not altering the original disk, I'd suggest using full administrator or root access.

hi
i am not getting proper clarity in your response, basically i need to seek client approval for getting access to Vcenter for my team members , before doing so would real only access suffice for this migration purpose> or does it need read \write access on Vcenter, based on this decision the request need to be placed for client approval

As mentioned, you need full administrator or ESXi root access to exclude permission-driven limitations during conversion.

A follow-up query, we managed to do migration of linux server hosted in ESXi to azure cloud ,but as per my understanding Starwind v2v convertor never creates VM rather only convert convert VMware VMDK images to Azure-compatible VHD format so is this an expected behavior or error message? if this is an expected behavior do we simply create a Linux VM manually out of the disk converted in azure in storage account?
I am unable to attach the error, will share via email

You can go either way by selecting output. You can output the file into a VM or use individual disks. Check this out https://www.starwindsoftware.com/v2v-he ... Azure.html.
Either way, neither source data nor data inside the VM is altered. That's why, say, if the drivers mismatch, the VM does not start at the destination.
The error you DMed me is related to timeouts on the destination or source side. It is not related to the V2V converter (there are no timeouts on the software side - for good or bad).

hi Yaroslav Kokhanovskyi
1. As per my understanding, the StarWind V2V Converter primarily converts VMware VMDK images into Azure-compatible VHD format and does not create virtual machines. Could you please confirm whether the VM creation step observed not completed is expected behavior or an error?
2. If this behavior is expected, can we proceed by manually creating a Linux virtual machine in Azure using the converted VHD available in the storage account?
Please update

1. As per my understanding, the StarWind V2V Converter primarily converts VMware VMDK images into Azure-compatible VHD format and does not create virtual machines. Could you please confirm whether the VM creation step observed not completed is expected behavior or an error?

Nope. Please review my previous comment and the documentation in Help.

2. If this behavior is expected, can we proceed by manually creating a Linux virtual machine in Azure using the converted VHD available in the storage account?

Yes, you should be able to assemble the VM in place using its disks.

So we looked up the Starwind server logs and found the error - It references with error related to NIC interface already attached to pvt endpoint, why it is not creating a new NIC and besides this in our starwind V2V convertor there is no option to select new NIC, please advice urgently

Error logs details

6/16 0:47:47.225 2c98 Facility ???ERROR: VMConverter::AzureConverter::CreateVM: CreateVirtualMachine Status code: 400 Error code:
CannotUseResourceWithPrivateEndpoint Message: Cannot use resource of type virtual machine on network interface
/subscriptions/50726fe5-d018-4baf-bc11-148f0e694205/resourceGroups/rg-eol-it-poc-gwc/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/
pe-blob-stazmigreolitpocgwc.nic.c9e56e2e-922e-4deb-be62-94f068bce41b because the nic is linked to an private endpoint
(/subscriptions/50726fe5-d018-4baf-bc11-148f0e694205/resourceGroups/rg-eol-it-poc-gwc/providers/Microsoft.Network/privateEndpoints/
pe-blob-stazmigreolitpocgwc).

I have logged an improvement request. Thanks for pointing that out. If you need a quick solution, please convert the VMS to disks and re-create them in place.