V2V for vSphere 6.0 VM to vSphere 6.5 VM ?

[TonyJK]

Hi,

We are going to migrate our vSphere infrastructure to a new platform.  We intend to make use of this opportunity to upgrade vSphere 6.0 to vSphere 6.5.

Consultant suggests us to make use of VMware Convertor to migrate VM from the old Data Centre to the new one.

Just wonder whether there is any change we need to work on the VM after migrated via VMware Convertor ?  What will be the bottle neck for conversion (Network / CPU of the machine running VMware Converter or CPU of the destination ESXi Host) ?  How many VM we can convert at the same time (It seems to be 4) ?

Thanks

[POCEH · Accepted solution]

If you don't do changes with Converter Wizard then the converted machines will be same as old machines including CPUs, RAM, etc.

The bottleneck will be disk utilization of target ESX host, destination disk(s)'s speed will throttle conversions.

There are couple of ESX limitations for concurrent conversion but there are queued conversion(s) that will auto start after finishing previous (active) conversions.

HTH

[daphnissov]

Unless you have a very unusual set of environment restrictions and circumstances, I would not recommend using VMware Converter if all you're doing is moving VMs from a 6.0 environment to a new 6.5 environment. There are lots of ways this can be accomplished quicker, easier, and with less downtime. Without knowing details of what you're trying to accomplish, it's difficult to give you any more precise advice than that.

[TonyJK]

We are going to migrate our existing VMware infrastructure from DELL Servers with EMC FC SAN (vSphere 6.0 Update 3) to HP Servers with HP MSA SAS SAN (vSphere 6.5).

Consultant suggests the migration of VMs to make use of VMware Convertor as it costs the least money.   He says that using vMotion is an expensive & complex way.

Thanks

[patanassov]

Why not just migrate them? (from vSphere client)

[daphnissov]

What type of license do you have applied to these hosts? And are you using vCenter Server?

[TonyJK]

Yes.  We are using vCenter Server 6.0 and running Enterprise License.  It should suffice for Storage vMotion.

May I ask when we perform a Storage vMotion, what will be the bottle neck ?  I guess it should be the Network.  The consultant may argue if we perform a V2V, the bottleneck is the ESXi Host Disk Utilization.

Thanks

[TonyJK]

From memory, in the past, a fellow suggests that it is the bandwidth of the converting machine is the bottleneck.  Has it been changed ?

I believe that we need not change anything for the VM for it to run on vSphere 6.5 (From vSphere 6.0).  Is it correct ?

Thanks

[POCEH]

The answer is about many simultaneous conversions, I can't imagine heavier task than creating and filling new VMs disks simultaneously.

HTH

[golddiggie]

Are your new hosts going to have a connection into the FC switch that the VMs live on currently? IMO/IME, it's 10000X easier to simply have a way to connect the new hosts to the same storage as the old hosts to do the svMotion. It's also why most people don't do a drastic connection type change when changing hardware. Such as if you're using EMC storage over FC, your new/replacement SAN is also FC connecting. Or they get cards for either the old, or new, hosts that give them a path to the new/old SAN for the migration. What connections are on the HP array you're migrating to?

I would also NOT opt to do the moves with converter because "it's cheapest". That's the absolute WRONG reason. Especially if the consultant is the one that made that decision. I'm pretty sure that if you reached out to HP telling them you need to move the VMs from the EMC SAN over to the new HP SAN, they would come up with either a solid free option, or one that's well within your budget range.

Personally, I hate HP SAN's (especially the MSA arrays). I've had VMs living on EMC (FC) SANs as well as EqualLogic (10Gb iSCSI connected) arrays and have had very happy experiences.

[TonyJK]

It is a HP MSA 2052 SAS SAN.  The consultant it will be a pretty complex and expensive way to migrate VM via Storage vMotion.

He also argues that HP MSA SAN is much better than an EMC Unity 300 Hybrid SAN as he says that there is firmware issue with EMC SAN.  Besides, HP SAN & Servers are much more stable.

Thanks

[TonyJK]

May I ask how many simultaneous session can be conducted when using VMWare Converter ? 

I suppose we need more than 1 machine to run VMWare Converter if we prefer to perform V2V for more than 1 VM simultaneously.  Is my understanding correct ?

Thanks

[POCEH]

Hopefully the answer is: Control the Number of Tasks Running Concurrently