Disaster recovery
Recovering a production Azure workload onto Hyper-V without downtime
A full Azure virtual machine had to be brought out of the cloud and stood back up on Hyper-V, intact, with every data disk attached and the service still available to users.
The situation
The client needed a production workload running in Microsoft Azure recovered onto on-premises Hyper-V infrastructure. This is the kind of migration that looks simple until it is attempted: the disk formats differ, Generation-2 virtual machines carry boot requirements that do not survive a naive export, and additional data disks routinely come back detached or locked.
The constraint that made it difficult was that the service could not be taken offline while the work was done.
What we did
- 1Exported the full set of Azure VM disks, including every attached data disk rather than the OS disk alone.
- 2Converted the exported VHDs into a Hyper-V compatible format, preserving the Generation-2 configuration so the machine would boot rather than fail into recovery.
- 3Restored the Generation-2 virtual machine on Hyper-V and worked through the boot failures that surfaced during the process.
- 4Diagnosed and cleared disk-locking problems that prevented the additional data disks from re-attaching.
- 5Re-attached all data disks and validated the workload end to end before cutover.
The outcome
- The workload was recovered onto Hyper-V with all data disks intact and no downtime for users.
- The client kept a documented, repeatable procedure for the same recovery path rather than a one-off fix.
“Exceptional support on a complex Azure disaster-recovery task. Full Azure VM disks were exported, VHDs converted to Hyper-V compatible formats, a Generation-2 VM restored and all additional data disks re-attached without downtime. Deep technical skill in Azure, Hyper-V, VM migration, troubleshooting boot issues and resolving disk-locking problems. Communication was clear, fast and helpful throughout.”
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