Migrate Azure resources between subscriptions

Problem

As MS team mentions migrating third party image based VMs between subscriptions is not possible.

When I try to migrate resources I get the following Error:

{"code":"ResourceMoveFailed","message":"Resource move is not supported for resources that have plan with different subscriptions. Resources are 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/rac1,Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/rac2,Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/racq' and correlation id is '14c65b8d-9ca5-4305-98fa-ce9b2d7e82b1'."}

As MS support team mentions we need to move resources using storage account and then create all of them manually in a new subscription. Which is very complicated. I found the following workaround.

Workaround

During migration, I found that the problem existed on VM and PIP resources only, while NSG, VNet, Disks did not have any issue (but they cannot be migrated if dependent resources exist, such as VM) .

HARBOR: Please do not consider this workaround for production systems. Contact MS support, if you encouter the same and get the recommendation from them.

• I decided to save VM characteristics and deleted VMs from the old subscription. Don’t worry, data will not be lost, your disks are not deleted and you can create VM using OS disk and then attach additional disks.
  Save:
  > disk lun # and attached disk names
  > VM size
  > attached NICs
  > Publisher, Product, and Name for the image: Click VM link -> Export template (on the left side panel) -> find storage profile section inside template script.

• I deleted PIP because it cannot be moved (we will recreate it in new subscription). If you don’t have PIP, then ignore. These are test servers so using PIP.

1. Migrate resources NSG, VNet, Disks, Nics, … using the following way:

2. Choose destination Subscription, Resource group, .. click OK

3. When the migration finishes, go to the destination subscription and using powershell run the following commands:

#Select destination subscription:
Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionId '<your destination subscription id goes here>'

#######For rac1#######
#Define variables, use the same resource names that were migrated
$pipname = "rac1-pip"
$nicname = "rac1-nic1"
$vnetName = "maritestan3-vnet"
$rg = "maritestan3"
$loc = "Central US"

#Create Public IP
$pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -AllocationMethod Dynamic
$pip = Get-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg

#Identify VNet, subnet, nic names that were migrated. And assign PIP to nic
$vnet = get-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name $vnetName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$subnet = Get-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "default" -VirtualNetwork $vnet
$nic = get-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $nicname -ResourceGroupName $rg
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterfaceIpConfig -Name ipconfig1 -PublicIPAddress $pip -Subnet $subnet
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterface

#Define VM size and attach nic
$vm = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName "rac1" -VMSize "Standard_D8s_v3"
$vm = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $vm -Id $nic.Id

#Define your plan, for this you will need Publisher, Product and Name saved from old subscription
Set-AzureRmVMPlan -VM $vm -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol"
Get-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol" | Set-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Accept

#Provide the name of the OS disk from where VM will be created
$osDiskName = "rac1-root"
$disk = Get-AzureRmDisk -DiskName $osDiskName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$vm = Set-AzVMOSDisk -VM $vm -ManagedDiskId $disk.Id -CreateOption Attach -Linux

#Create new VM
New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -VM $vm

I am repeating the same steps for other VMs.

#######For rac2#######
#Define variables, use the same resource names that were migrated
$pipname = "rac2-pip"
$nicname = "rac2-nic1"
$vnetName = "maritestan3-vnet"
$rg = "maritestan3"
$loc = "Central US"

#Create Public IP
$pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -AllocationMethod Dynamic
$pip = Get-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg

#Identify VNet, subnet, nic names that were migrated. And assign PIP to nic
$vnet = get-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name $vnetName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$subnet = Get-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "default" -VirtualNetwork $vnet
$nic = get-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $nicname -ResourceGroupName $rg
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterfaceIpConfig -Name ipconfig1 -PublicIPAddress $pip -Subnet $subnet
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterface

#Define VM size and attach nic
$vm = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName "rac2" -VMSize "Standard_D8s_v3"
$vm = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $vm -Id $nic.Id

#Define your plan, for this you will need Publisher, Product and Name
Set-AzureRmVMPlan -VM $vm -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol"
Get-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol" | Set-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Accept

#Provide the name of the OS disk from where VM will be created
$osDiskName = "rac2-root"
$disk = Get-AzureRmDisk -DiskName $osDiskName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$vm = Set-AzVMOSDisk -VM $vm -ManagedDiskId $disk.Id -CreateOption Attach -Linux

#Create new VM
New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -VM $vm

#######For racq#######
#Define variables, use the same resource names that were migrated
$pipname = "racq-pip"
$nicname = "racq-nic1"
$vnetName = "maritestan3-vnet"
$rg = "maritestan3"
$loc = "Central US"

#Create Public IP
$pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -AllocationMethod Dynamic
$pip = Get-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -Name $pipname -ResourceGroupName $rg

#Identify VNet, subnet, nic names that were migrated. And assign PIP to nic
$vnet = get-AzureRmVirtualNetwork -Name $vnetName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$subnet = Get-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name "default" -VirtualNetwork $vnet
$nic = get-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name $nicname -ResourceGroupName $rg
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterfaceIpConfig -Name ipconfig1 -PublicIPAddress $pip -Subnet $subnet
$nic | Set-AzNetworkInterface

#Define VM size and attach nic
$vm = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName "racq" -VMSize "Standard_D8s_v3"
$vm = Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -VM $vm -Id $nic.Id

#Define your plan, for this you will need Publisher, Product and Name
Set-AzureRmVMPlan -VM $vm -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol"
Get-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Publisher "flashgrid-inc" -Product "flashgrid-skycluster" -Name "skycluster-ol-priv-byol" | Set-AzureRmMarketPlaceTerms -Accept

#Provide the name of the OS disk from where VM will be created
$osDiskName = "racq-root"
$disk = Get-AzureRmDisk -DiskName $osDiskName -ResourceGroupName $rg
$vm = Set-AzVMOSDisk -VM $vm -ManagedDiskId $disk.Id -CreateOption Attach -Linux

#Create new VM
New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $rg -Location $loc -VM $vm

4. Attach additional disks and start VMs.