migrate ESX2 VM to ESX3 across WAN

[rob_nixon]

I'm looking for a procedure to migrate or copy a VM from an ESX2.x farm across a WAN to an ESX3.x farm in another data center. I thought I could create a template from the existing VM on the target ESX3 farm, but that didn't work.

Is this something that VMware Converter 3 can do? Is there something I can do in Virtual Center 2 to accomplish this? Would it be easier/faster to use some sort of file copy to move a vmdk file? What is the best practice?

Rob Nixon

[sheetsb]

You can "cold migrate" VMs between ESX2 and ESX3 via VirtualCenter. Both must be managed by the same VC server. If the hardware for the two farms are the same you can also do a live migration. I don't remember all the requirements for the servers, VC and SAN.

Converter should be able to do this as well, again cold or hot depending on the applications running on the VM.

Bill S.

[rob_nixon]

Cold migrate doesn't do it, because I need a copy or replica of the gold master VM at both sites. I tried moving the ESX host into the same data center in Virtual Center, and doing a cold clone. That looked like it was working for about an hour, but at the very end, it failed with an error message "Invalid configuration for device '4' "

I have no idea what that means.

Maybe I'll try VMware Converter. Not getting anywhere otherwise. Any other suggestions appreciated.

[sheetsb]

Converter will work to get a copy of the VM. But if you are having problems with the invalid configuration you'll probably need to fix that first. I believe there is a log in the same location as the VM configuration file that may give you a hint as to the problem you encountered with Vmotion. I don't remember the name but I think it is something like vmname.hlog.

Bill S.

[wilson94t]

Looks like the clone did not work for you. I guess you could clone locally and then cold migrate across the WAN. WAN cold migrations work fine for me between countries.

[jjam3774]

Sound like a network issue. Have you tried checking for mismatched duplexes between host machines. We had a problem similar to that. One box was at full while the other was at half. The clone or migration would run for about 15 minutes and then time out. I would check the destination box to see how far the migration got and all of the files were there. Long story short I checked the network configs of both machines and it turns out they had mismatched duplexes. The migrations and clones worked perfectly after I corrected the issue.