This article describes the steps to migrate an on-premise FortiGate VM to a Cloud environment (AWS, Azure, etc).
Scope
FortiGate VM, Cloud FortiGate.
Solution
On-premise FortiGate VM leverages different hypervisor platforms compared to Cloud environment. Hence, it would not be possible to perform a backup and restore function to migrate the FortiGate VM to the Cloud environment.
To migrate the on-premise FortiGate VM to the Cloud environment (Azure has been used in this example), the following steps have to be performed:
Step 1: Backup configuration file from existing on-premise FortiGate-VM.
Step 2: Convert the configuration file with the FortiConverter service.
Step 3: Ensure edit the following attribute to reflect the correct interface and routing information in the cloud environment:
config system interface.
config router static.
Step 4: Once the respective has been done, restore the configuration file in the provisioned Cloud FortiGate.
Step 5: During the restoration, Azure FortiGate would detect changes in virtual disk usage. FortiGate will perform auto-format and proceed to reboot once again:
Step 6: Log in with the existing login credential on the on-prem FortiGate VM if the admin has not been changed:
Ensure that both FortiGates have been provisioned with the same FortiOS version.