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nvaert1986
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Question about the Direct backup method and moving from a Microsoft Windows based VMware vCenter environment to VCSA

Hello everyone,

I've got a question about moving from a Microsoft Windows VMware vCenter based environment to a VMware VCSA appliance before we move the specific environments.

- We've currently got 3 hosts and a SAN;

     - 2 Virtualization hosts running VMware vSphere 6.7 U1 (we're planning to migrate them to U2);

     - 1 Physical host running Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 with VMware vCenter and Veeam for backup;

     - All 3 hosts are connected to the SAN using SAS;

     - The VMware VMFS-5 partition is mounted read-write for the virtualization hosts and read-only for the Microsoft Windows host;

     - The license used is VMware vSphere 6 Essentials Plus (in case this matters, though I don't think it does from what I've read).

Currently we're using the "Direct" backup method for making backups of the VMware vSphere environment. Is it still possible to backup using the "Direct" backup method when moving from a Microsoft Windows VMware vCenter to a VMware VCSA appliance?

Note: The physical host will remain attached directly to the SAN in read-only mode, but the vCenter will just no longer be located on the physical host and in the virtual environment.

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Alex_Romeo
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Hi,

There is no problem.

For Veeam it's irrelevant whether the vCenter is
an Appliance or installed on a Windows server.

Alessandro Romeo

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Alex_Romeo
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Hi,

There is no problem.

For Veeam it's irrelevant whether the vCenter is
an Appliance or installed on a Windows server.

Alessandro Romeo

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was it helpful? Let us know by completing this short survey here.

Blog: https://www.aleadmin.it/
nvaert1986
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Thank you for your reply :-).

I always though it was dependent on vCenter on the Microsoft Windows host. I though I read it somewhere, but must've been confused or misread it. I'm going to perform the migration next week, so hopefully all will go well!

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a_p_
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1 Physical host running Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 with VMware vCenter and Veeam for backup;

Please note that such a configuration needs some planning/decisions.

The vCSA Migration Wizard will deploy th new vCSA Appliance on an ESXi host, migrate all vCenter data, assume the vCenter Server's identity, and finally shut down the source system! With Veeam Backup running on that host, that's likely not what you want.

In your case - with a small environment - you may consider to either do a clean, new installation of the vCSA, or reinstall the physical server after the migration, and setup Veeam backup again.

André

nvaert1986
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Dear a.p.,

Thank you for your reply, but that's exactly what I want, because the server running Veeam / VMware vCenter will be replaced too 🙂 So VMware vCenter will me migrated to an appliance/ / virtual machine and the new backup server, will only be running Veeam, as it'll be a light and simple machine.

Kind Regards,

Niels

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