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sushilkm
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VM migration...

Need communities suggestion on below approaches to migrate the virtual machines from 6.5 to another 6.5  . Unfortunately the Distributed switch at source VC is running version 5.0.0 . I tried migrating the VM using VMware cross v center V Motion fling and it threw network incompatibility error

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we cannot upgrade vDS 5.0.0 to 6.5.0 as customer fears compatibility issues. Same time, i could not find any specific documentation which i can use to satisfy customer concerns. To top it up. we do not expect any downtime on any VM.

Considering above, we have decided to go with one of the below approaches.

Approach -1

  • Add a new Swing host to the existing V center,
  • Create a Standard switch in swing host
  • Migrate the existing vDS port groups to a standard switch on this swing host .
  • Remove the swing host from V center  and add it to target VC
  • Again migrate the port groups to distributed switch in destination VC
  • Migrate the VM;s off it to destination VC

In Above approach , my concern is we will end up doing lots of work as number of VM;s to migrate is in few thousand. moreover, i am not confident of this approach as it;s very complex to perform & chances of human error are one too many.

Approach - 2

Second approach is

  • Create a new 6.5.0 compatible in source vDC  and use advance V motion to migrate VM;s off 5.0 vDS to newly created 6.5 vDS with in same ESXi host. Once this is done, we can use cross v center v motion fling to move VM across to the destination VC.

My concern with 2nd approach is whether VMotion from vDS 5.0.0 to 6.5.0 will work or not. Unfortunately, i have no labs to test this out , hence requesting community for help here..

I cannot think of anything else as such. Are there any other options available. What are the implications of upgrading vDS from 5.0.0 to 6.50 and whether it can be upgraded directly or not, While i have never seen any outage ever while doing vDS upgrades, i am not sure on this as vDC 6.5 and 5.0 have too many difference.

Expecting some comments from expert on above approaches and suggest if i have 3rd option available.

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daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal

It seems like you're going through a lot of hassle when there shouldn't be. You need to get that vDS upgraded to the appropriate level. Customer "fears" that are not founded on any evidence or data are completely irrational, and that's something you, as a consultant who guides them, need to make them see. If they don't want downtime, you need to upgrade the vDS version.

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