Is vCenter up and running when the Migration Assistant is exporting the performance data out of a Windows SQL database in Stage 2?

[griese]

Per the walkthroughs I've watched and the documentation here (Transferring Data from an Existing vCenter Server Appliance), I know that you can choose to import the performance data in the background after the VCSA appliance is built and the identity, including IP address, is transferred over.  When the Migration Assistant is exporting the data in the first place, I made the assumption that vCenter is up and running during that time.  Is that true?  I have a very large database (>500GB) and the estimation tool for the vCenter 6.5 upgrade (VMware Knowledge Base) puts the export time at 9.5 hours so I wanted to be prepared if it was going to be down for the entire export process.

Thank you!

Troy

[griese]

And I thought this would be an easy question for anyone who has gone through this...  Or I thought I would at least get a question from someone about the size of the database.

Hoping for any experience out there before my upgrade planned for tomorrow.

Troy

[scott28tt]

Moderator: Moved to vCenter Server (for visibility)

[griese · Accepted solution]

The answer is NOPE.

From the SQL perspective, my DBA said the DB was >500GB so I'm not entirely sure where 203.82GB comes from. 

When the export of the VUM DB started, the Update Manager plugin for my vSphere Client threw an error.  It then progressed on to the other bit of configuration data to export (License, Storage Profiles, etc.).  When it got to "Exporting VMware vCenter Server Database data..." I lost my connection in the vSphere Client.  So... vCenter is NOT up and available when the Migration Assistant is exporting the vCenter Server Database data.

Hope this helps someone.