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Migrating from VMware to Virtuozzo using Veeam Backup & Replication provides a practical and low-risk approach to platform modernisation while maintaining business continuity. By leveraging Veeam’s proven backup, recovery, and portability capabilities, organisations can efficiently move workloads from VMware environments into Virtuozzo infrastructure with minimal disruption. This approach enables workloads to be securely backed up, restored, and validated in the target environment, reducing dependency on VMWare while ensuring data integrity throughout the transition.

So how is this done. Migrating a VMware VM to Virtuozzo using Veeam Backup & Replication is essentially a controlled restore and convert process. You’re not doing a direct “hypervisor to hypervisor” migration in one click, instead Veeam handles the abstraction by backing up the VM and restoring it into a format compatible with Virtuozzo.

Architecture Overview

Here’s how it works in a practical, step by step flow:

1. Prepare the Environment

Start by making sure both platforms are ready:

• VMware side (VMware vSphere):
  • VM is healthy (no snapshots left open unnecessarily)
  • VMware Tools installed (helps with clean OS state)
  • Sufficient backup access (vCenter or ESXi host added in Veeam)
• Virtuozzo side:
  • Target cluster or host deployed and reachable
  • Storage configured (Virtuozzo storage or NFS/iSCSI)
  • Network mappings planned (port groups vs Virtuozzo virtual networks)
• Veeam setup:
  • Backup repository available
  • Proxy and repository sized for data movement

2. Perform a Veeam Backup of the VMware VM

In Veeam Backup & Replication:

1. Create a Backup Job

2. Select the source VM(s) from vSphere

3. Choose repository and retention

4. Run the job

Best practice: Run at least one active full backup to avoid dependency chains during migration.

3. Validate the Backup (Highly Recommended)

Before migrating:

• Use SureBackup or Instant Recovery verification
• Confirm:
  • OS boots correctly
  • Applications/services start
  • No filesystem corruption

This step reduces risk during the actual migration.

Windows PowerShell – Pre-Migration Validation

# Check uptime

systeminfo | find “System Boot Time”

# Check disk space

Get-PSDrive -PSProvider FileSystem

# Verify VMware Tools

Get-Service -Name “VMTools”

# Check connectivity

Test-Connection google.com -Count 4

# Export installed applications

Get-WmiObject Win32_Product | Select Name, Version | Export-CSV C:\InstalledApps.csv

It takes about a couple of minutes to run and grabs the relevant applications and versions. A file named “InstalledApps.csv” is created and looks something like this:

4. Restore VM to a Different Platform (Conversion Phase)

Since Virtuozzo is KVM-based, you’ll use Veeam’s Agent-Based or Disk Export Method. Virtuozzo also has a built-in VMWare Migration tool in the Virtuozzo Infrastructure from version 7.3 U1. (https://www.virtuozzo.com/company/blog/product-updates/vmware-migration-tool/)

In my scenario, I’ll go through the Disk Export Method using Veeam Backup & Replication, converting to the QCOW2 format (which Virtuozzo recognises), importing into Virtuozzo and deploying the exported and converted image.

Exporting Disks in Veeam

1. In Veeam Backup & Replication:

• On the Home tab on the top menu, click on Restore and select one of the following:
  • VMware vSphere → Restore from backup → Disk Restore → Export disk
  • VMware Cloud Director → Restore from backup → VM restore → Disk Restore → Export disk

• Select the Backup and the Restore Point to Export. By default, VBR restores disks to the latest state. You can select an earlier restore state.  

• Check the box next to the disks you want to export. In my case, I only have one disk associated to this VM.

• Select the destination for the Disk Export (Specify the destination server and folder) and format in which you want to save the resulting virtual disks. In this case I will choose VMDK export Format.

• At the Secure Restore step, you can get VBR to scan the backup for malware activity before restoring the machine to the production environment. Since I will be converting and restoring manually, I won’t be selecting any of these options.

• The export of the backup is initiated after the Reason & Summary section:

2. When you have exported the Disks as a VMDK you will now need to convert the disk format to QCOW2. This is the format that can be read by Virtuozzo. To do this, I have used the Qemu Binaries for Windows to do the conversion which can be downloaded from https://www.qemu.org/download.
   • Once installed on a Windows OS, you will need to add the Qemu path into the Environment Variables for the Qemu command to work in PowerShell or Command Line. This can be easily done by doing the following:
   • Go to File Explorer. Right click on This PC → Properties → Advanced System Settings → Environment Variables
   • Click on Path under the User Variables section and click on Edit. Click New and paste the path where Qemu is installed on your OS, in my scenario is what in the default path of C:\Program Files\qemu.

Now you are ready to run the following in the Command Line or PowerShell:

qemu-img convert -f vmdk -O qcow2 “source.vmdk” “target.qcow2”

Check the converted disk for consistency which is now the source image:

qemu-img check source.qcow2

3. Log into Virtuozzo and upload the converted disk to Virtuozzo. Go to Compute → Virtual Machine → Add Image

Select the converted disk by browsing to its location, give it a name and select the OS Distribution. Click Add

Once uploaded, the image will appear under Compute → Virtual Machines → Images

4. Now that the export disk in the QCOW2 format has been uploaded, we are ready to create a new VM in Virtuozzo using this image.

Selected the QCOW2 image that was uploaded as the Image, select the Flavor and Network Interfaces of the VM. Click on Deploy once you have selected all the necessary options.

VM deployment initiated.

5. Post-Migration Tasks

Once the VM boots successfully:

• Remove VMware specific tools and Uninstall VMware Tools
• Install Virtuozzo/KVM guest tools
• Update drivers (network, disk, etc.) using Virtio for Windows
• Reconfigure:
  • IP address
  • Hostname (if needed)
• Validate applications:
  • Database connectivity
  • AD/domain membership
  • Web services

Windows PowerShell – Post-Migration Validation

# Verify IP settings

ipconfig /all

# Check DNS

Resolve-DnsName google.com

# Verify VirtIO drivers

Get-PnpDevice | Where-Object {$_.FriendlyName -like “*VirtIO*”}

# Check event logs

Get-EventLog -LogName System -Newest 50 | Where-Object {$_.EntryType -eq “Error”}

# CPU and memory usage

Get-Counter ‘\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time’

6. Testing & Cutover

1. Perform application-level validation
2. Run parallel testing (VMware vs Virtuozzo)
3. Schedule cutover:
   • Final incremental backup
   • Restore latest state
4. Power off VMware VM
5. Bring Virtuozzo VM into production

Key Considerations

1. Disk Format Compatibility
   • VMware = VMDK
   • Virtuozzo = QCOW2 / RAW
   • Conversion is unavoidable
2. Drivers & Kernel Differences
   • Expect changes due to hypervisor switch (ESXi → Virtuozzo)
3. Downtime Strategy
   • Cold migration = simplest
   • Near-zero downtime = requires replication + final sync
4. Networking Differences
   • VMWare Port groups ≠ Virtuozzo virtual networks
   • Plan mappings carefully

Final Thoughts

Migrating from VMware vSphere to Virtuozzo using Veeam Backup & Replication provides organizations with a reliable and structured approach to modernizing their virtualization infrastructure while maintaining business continuity and data protection. By leveraging Veeam’s recovery capabilities alongside Virtuozzo’s scalable virtualization platform, organizations can reduce licensing complexity, optimize infrastructure costs, and build a flexible alternative virtualization environment for the future.

Published: May 30, 2026 5:05pm