Hi,
I have 2 standalone hosts running EXS3.01 Server with direct FC attach to HP storage. The 2 physical server are: HP Proliant DL360 G4P and HP Proliant DL360 G5, due to the space issue, recently we also attached the NAS drive to hosts as well. Currently each host has around 20 V machine, some are on SAN, some on NAS and local drive
Now we are going to migrate the whole system on totally new hardware platform, the server will be HP Proliant DL380 G5 or G7, and attach to the NetApps storage via SAN switch. We would like to use ESX4.1 for the new environment, I have 2 plan in mind:
1. Upgrade the sytem first before data migration:
- Deploay Vcenter Server 4.1
- Install ESX4.1 on the new HP server
- Upgrade existing Live from 3.01 to ESX 4.1
- Use Vmotion or Vconverter to migrate over each V machine
My Worry about this plan:
- Can I do the host upgrading directly, is there any risk for doing so? ( I know I must shut down all V machine)
- I over heard that if upgrade the system on 3.01 server with attached SAN or NAS, system may mistakely install the new ESX4.1 on SAN or NAS which will cause the data loss, so should I dettach the SAN and NAS, do the upgrade first, once finish, attached back the SAN and NAS
- I also over heard that some SCSI Control is not be regconized by the EXS 4.1
- I am going to install 3.01 on my new server with SAN attached and try to do a test upgrade to ESX 4.1 to see the interface, will this be useful?
2. Direct use Vconverter to migration:
- Install ESX4.1 on my new server
- User Voncenter to migrate the Vmachine to the new Server
With this plan, I no need touch the production system, so is safe, I even tried with Vconverter standalone version, but it took me a long time to do so, so I feel it is a nightmare for migrating around 40 Vmachine.
BTW, Will Vmotion be much fast than Vconverter?
Any idea is appreciated
