Making Migration Easy: VMware Architecture Migration Tool with AMD

The VMware Architecture Migration Tool (VAMT) was developed jointly by AMD and VMware to automate the migration of legacy VMs from Intel architecture to AMD architecture, with the goal of delivering a better user experience and better business value. This presentation and live demo will walk users through the features, functionality and roadmap for this quickly evolving open source tool.

Presented by Chuck Gilbert, Technical Director of Solutions Architecture for Architecture and Strategy, and Jason Collier, Principal Member of Technical Staff for Architecture and Strategy, AMD

In their presentation, Chuck Gilbert and Jason Collier explained the challenges involved in migrating virtual machines between different CPU architectures, particularly between Intel and AMD. Gilbert pointed out that while VMware’s Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) can smooth the migration process within generational families of CPUs by standardizing the feature sets across different hardware, it effectively locks performance to the lowest common denominator. Recognizing that live migration between Intel and AMD platforms remains complex due to differences embedded in the VMware portfolio, AMD and VMware co-developed the VMware Architecture Migration Tool (VAMT) to facilitate streamlined cold migrations. This tool not only supports migrations between Intel and AMD architectures but also within homogeneous or heterogeneous x86 environments.

The presentation emphasized that the VAMT simplifies the migration process by automating many traditionally manual steps through a combination of PowerShell scripting, scheduling, and task management. Operators are no longer required to individually handle each migration task as VAMT packages steps involved in cold migration, such as shutting down VMs, moving data, and ensuring VMware tools are properly functioning on the new environments. The tool also supports throttling and outage window scheduling, bringing efficiency and reliability to large-scale migrations. Jason Collier demonstrated the tool’s capabilities with a live demo, showcasing its ease of use and integration into existing workflows, making it a valuable resource for both small IT shops and large cloud providers.

Finally, the presentation highlighted that VAMT is an open-source project available on GitHub, inviting the community to contribute and suggest enhancements. Kudos were given to the fundamental aim of improving business value and user experience by simplifying VM migrations. AMD sees this tool as the starting point for broader infrastructural upgrades, potentially extending support in the future for other virtualization environments like KVM and Hyper-V, as well as cloud migrations. The overarching message was clear: VAMT represents a pragmatic, collaborative effort to solve real-world IT operational challenges, and AMD actively seeks user feedback to refine and expand the tool’s capabilities.