A storage layer based orchestration method can efficiently migrate a virtualized, enterprise scale system across disparate virtualization environments. A copy of a source logical storage container with multiple virtual disks of virtual machines (VMs) can be created in a public cloud destination as a destination logical storage container. Each of the VMs is associated with at least one virtual disk that includes boot data (“boot disk”) for the VM. With application programming interface function calls and/or scripted task automation and configuration management commands, the orchestration method coordinates different applications and tools to convert the boot disks into canonical storage representations (e.g., logical unit numbers (LUNs)), to instantiate VMs in the destination environment, and to chain load the boot disks to launch the VMs in a different virtualization environment.