Businesses around the world have embraced virtualization because it can deliver high performance and reduce both capital and operational expenditures, while freeing up valuable IT resources. The rise of VMware is testament to how server virtualization has helped and continues to help many data centers develop cost-effective IT strategies. However, IT managers today have more options when it comes to choosing the right virtualization solution. In the 2015 Gartner "Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization," seven companies are listed. For CIOs swayed by this data, the two virtually unchallenged leaders are VMware and Microsoft, causing many to consider migrating their VMware solution to Microsoft Hyper-V due to its reduced cost, feature set and, probably most important, its tight integration with Azure for cloud enablement.

Clearly, no amount of cost savings, advanced features or cloud enablement can make up for headaches caused by workload migration. According to Gridstore, with the proper planning and tools, migrating can be essentially risk-free with zero downtime to workloads. In fact, there are myriad migration tools and approaches that can fit any IT budget.

Common migration tools capabilities include:

• Online data sync/migration
• Offline disk conversion from VMDK/RAW to VHDX/Pass-through
• Automated VMware Tool removal
• Automated VM provisioning (not all tools create VMs – some just migrate data)
• Disk controller fixup
• Hyper-V Integration Services (IS) injection
• Network information migration (ex. Static IP, MAC address, VLAN, other)