Glossary¶
Definitions for terms used throughout this documentation.
A¶
AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor)
Nutanix's native KVM-based hypervisor. AHV is fully integrated with Prism and uses snapshot APIs leveraged by tools such as HYCU and Veeam for Hop 1 operations.
Azure Local VM
A Hyper-V VM running on Azure Local and visible in the Azure portal, enabling Azure-integrated management experiences (RBAC, Policy, Defender for Cloud, Update Manager, Monitor).
Azure Local
Microsoft's hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform formerly known as Azure Stack HCI. Runs Hyper-V workloads on-premises with Azure Arc integration.
Azure Migrate
A free Azure service for discovering, assessing, and migrating servers to Azure or Azure Local. Used in this repo as the Hop 2 migration engine from Hyper-V staging to Azure Local.
B¶
Batch
A group of 8–10 VMs migrated together in a single migration cycle. Batches limit blast radius and allow for parallel testing.
CBT (Changed Block Tracking)
A mechanism used by hypervisors (AHV, vSphere) to track which disk blocks have changed since the last backup or replication cycle, enabling efficient incremental operations.
Carbonite Migrate
An agent-based migration product used in this repo as a Deploy-First OS-level replication option. It is hypervisor-agnostic and replicates guest OS state into a pre-provisioned target VM.
Commvault
An enterprise data protection and recovery platform. In this repo, it is modeled as a two-hop migration option that stages Nutanix workloads onto Hyper-V before Azure Migrate completes Hop 2.
CSV (Cluster Shared Volume)
A shared disk volume accessible by all nodes in an Azure Local or Windows Server Failover Cluster. Migration target storage on Azure Local is stored on CSVs.
D¶
Deploy-First
A build-first migration pattern where the destination Azure Local VM is provisioned before migration starts. Data, application state, or OS state is then moved into that target using methods such as SMS, Robocopy, app-native workflows, or Carbonite.
H¶
HYCU Backup & Recovery
A purpose-built backup and recovery solution for Nutanix, VMware, and other platforms. Uses native AHV snapshot APIs — no proxy VM required on Nutanix clusters.
Hop 1
The first migration hop: migrating VMs from the Nutanix source to a Hyper-V staging environment using Veeam, HYCU, or Commvault.
Hop 2
The second migration hop: migrating VMs from Hyper-V staging to Azure Local using Azure Migrate.
HV (Hyper-V)
Microsoft's Type-1 hypervisor. Used as the staging platform in all two-hop migration paths before the final move to Azure Local.
I¶
IIC (Infinite Improbability Corp)
The IIC environment naming/resource convention used throughout this repository for lab and reference scenarios. Domain: iic.local, NetBIOS: IMPROBABLE.
N¶
NCC (Nutanix Cluster Check)
A health-check utility built into Nutanix clusters. Run ncli health-check run-all or use Prism to validate cluster health before migration.
P¶
Prism Central
Nutanix's multi-cluster management plane. Distinct from Prism Element (the single-cluster management plane).
Prism Element
Nutanix's per-cluster management plane (HTTPS port 9440). Used by Veeam and HYCU to discover and snapshot VMs.
R¶
RPO (Recovery Point Objective)
The maximum acceptable age of restore point data at cutover time. In migration context: how much data can be lost if cutover happens at the last synchronization point.
RTO (Recovery Time Objective)
The maximum acceptable time to complete a cutover and have the VM operational on the new platform.
V¶
Veeam Backup & Replication
A widely-used data protection and migration platform. In this repo, used for Hop 1 replication from Nutanix (AHV or ESXi) to Hyper-V staging. Supports built-in re-IP rules at failover time.
VHDX
The Hyper-V virtual disk format. All migration paths convert source VM disks (AHV qcow2 or VMware vmdk) to VHDX before Azure Migrate replication to Azure Local.