Planning for migration

To get the best results from your VPC migration, spend time analyzing your classic environment and learning how the VPC+ tool will handle different components of your environment. Use the following information to start planning your migration journey.

Preparing for differences in classic and VPC environments

Table 1. Review tasks
Task	Details
Review quotas and service limits	Ensure that your IBM Cloud® classic infrastructure components that you are migrating are within the VPC quotas and service limits.
Review migration considerations	Review information about specific infrastructure components.
Review comparisons between infrastructure environments	Some components of your classic infrastructure might not exist in VPC such as dedicated virtual servers, available server profiles, and IPv6 addressing.
Review VPC pricing	Pricing might vary between IBM Cloud classic and VPC infrastructures.

Granting permissions and access

Table 2. Permissions and access tasks
Task	Details
Permissions for classic and VPC	Contact your account administrator for permissions.
Grant access between VPC Image Services and IBM Cloud Object Storage	Grant this access if you want to migrate your primary boot volume, secondary volumes, and images from classic infrastructure. For more information, see Granting access between services.

Gathering IBM Cloud account information

Table 3. Required IBM Cloud account information
Account information	Details
Username	Create a username specifically for VPC+ Cloud Migration. In the IBM Cloud console, select Manage > Access (IAM) > Users. Select Users and then click Invite user, supplying the email address name of the user. This allows you to delete the username after your migration is complete. For more information, see Inviting users to an account.
API keys	You need a classic infrastructure API key. You will also need to create an IBM Cloud API key (VPC API key) specifically for VPC+ Cloud Migration. Your IBM Cloud API key must have “Reader, Writer” access. You can verify the level of access in the IBM Cloud console by clicking Manage > Access (IAM) and selecting Authorizations. For more information, see Managing classic infrastructure API keys and Managing user API keys.
IBM Cloud Object Storage and resource instance ID (service credentials)	Your Object Storage bucket is used to store your images and volumes during the migration process and its resource instance ID allows VPC+ Cloud Migration to access your IBM Cloud Object Storage and import the images that you want to migrate. For more information, see IBM Cloud Object Storage getting started tutorial and Service credentials.
(Optional) VRA (Vyatta 5600) configuration file	If you want to migrate your Access Control Lists, VPN gateways, and public gateways, you need a VRA set command configuration file in `txt` format. JSON format is not supported.

Establishing connection between classic and VPC

In some cases, resources in VPC still might need to access resources back in classic, such as databases or interprocess communication. In these cases, creating a transit gateway provides a bridge between the two environments. The VPC+ tool can help create the transit gateway, or you can create it through the IBM Cloud. If you want to learn more, see About IBM Cloud Transit Gateway.

Review the Planning for IBM Cloud Transit Gateway information if you want to establish a connection between your VPC and classic infrastructure.

For IBM Cloud Transit Gateway use cases, check out the following information:

Migration process overview

The following table outlines the end-to-end process of your migration journey by using the VPC+ Cloud Migration tool.

Table 4. Migration process overview
Migration task	Details
Create an instance of VPC+ Cloud Migration through the IBM Cloud catalog	Create an instance of VPC+ Cloud Migration through the IBM Cloud catalog so that you have access to the VPC+ tool.
Access the VPC+ Cloud Migration tool	Log in by using your IBMid.
Add your IBM Cloud account to VPC+ Cloud Migration	In order for VPC+ Cloud Migration to access details of your IBM Cloud configuration, you must add your IBM Cloud accounts information.
Discover your IBM Cloud classic infrastructure	After you add your IBM Cloud accounts to VPC+ Cloud Migration, the VPC+ tool can discover your classic infrastructure resources that can be migrated.
Edit your discovered resources	VPC+ Cloud Migration creates a workspace after discovering your environment. In the workspace you can add, delete, or edit any section of your VPC.
Provision your resources in VPC	You can either provision your entire VPC or select the components that you want to provision, allowing you to migrate the rest at a later time.
Validate your resources in VPC	After you provision your VPC environment, and before you make your VPC live, you will want to validate your VPC environment to ensure it is ready for production.
(Optional) Create a transit gateway	If you want to establish a connection between your VPC and classic infrastructure, you can create a transit gateway. Refer to Establishing connection between classic and VPC.

Next steps

Refer to Getting started with VPC+ Cloud Migration to start your migration journey.