Streamlining Migrations with Convert2RHEL's Pre-Conversion Analysis

If the idea of an in-place conversion makes you a little nervous, I hear you, and that’s exactly why Red Hat’s engineering team built a pre-conversion analysis tool. In this tech tip I register a CentOS Linux 7 system to Red Hat Insights, run the pre-conversion analysis, and let it inspect hundreds of data points before we commit to anything. When it flags an inhibitor, I fix the issue, re-run it, get a green light, and then run the conversion itself.

A few things worth carrying away from this one:

• Look before you leap. The analysis inspects hundreds of data points and tells you about blockers, like an outdated package, before you start. In the demo an EPEL release package needed updating, which is an easy fix once you know.
• This scales. Whether you’re converting one system or thousands, running the analysis and the conversion through Red Hat Insights lets you work across many systems concurrently instead of one at a time.
• Insights does the setup for you. Behind the scenes it installs the Convert2RHEL utility as part of the pre-conversion process, so once you’re green you’re ready to convert from the same console.

Even if you end up on RHEL 7, you have runway: an in-place upgrade to RHEL 8, or the low-cost migration subscription with up to four years of ELS support.