Best path to migrate vCenter, View Connection, View Composer, VMs for OS upgrade

[PonoFinlayson]

Hi all,

I'm sure someone has had to do this before and could tell me the caveats when migrating a Horizon VDI environment to new VMs. This will include a SQL Server, View Composer, View Connection, and vCenter (not VCSA). I have read a few and one that I'm thinking about implementing goes in this order: SQL Databases, View Composer, View Connection (in replica mode to existing server), then vCenter.

All hardware will be the same. At some point I'll need to disconnect from the existing vCenter and connect the hosts to the new vCenter server and that is essentially my question is when is the best point to make that switch? If the order mentioned is best then it's obviously at the end but is this truly the best order?

I'm no expert and would appreciate any guidance from someone who has successfully done this.

[BenFB]

What type of desktops are you using? Since you mention Composer I'm assuming linked clones but are they persistent or non-persistent? vCenter for Windows has been deprecated so this might be a good time to migrate to a new VCSA based vCenter.

The process to replace the SQL, Composer and Connection Servers for OS upgrades is a common issues that is well documented. For the Connection Servers you just add new replica and then decommission the old ones. For Composer you will want to follow the product documentation as there are a few extra steps.

Migrate View Composer with an Existing Database

[alsmk2]

Bear in mind that re-pointing Connection Servers to a new VC is not supported (but there is an unofficial way to do it out on the web). I've made this mistake in the past, and had a very very painful night sorting it out.

For the existing connection servers, you'd want to add the second VC separately, rather than editing the existing connection. You'd then have to recreate the pools using the new VC.

[PonoFinlayson]

Thanks for the response. I came to this same conclusion today. I was trying to avoid it to save work but I'm seeing that there's no safe way around it, I'll be recreating the pools. Thankfully I'm not dealing with a high number of users.