does conversion upload from converter host or from vcenter server

[bleuze]

I have an esxi host in a remote location with WAN network link to the vsphere vcenter server. So, My question is. If I install standalone converter on a computer at the remote branch and use it to convert a physical machine at that same remote branch to the esxi server at that remote branch does the processing and uploading of the conversion all happen on the computers at the local branch? 

I ask because one stage of the setup for the conversion process is to authenticate with the vcenter server and choose to which datacenter it will upload. If this upload all happens within the remote branch's LAN network it then the network will not be a bottleneck. But if it has to pasd through the vcenter cerver over the WAN link,  I could be waiting a long time for it to complete

[elehpantskneeca]

Yeah you will be fine doing that as long as it’s in the same local subnet for source and target. I do that all the time. Source ->point to destination ESXi

Avoid using any proxy in the converter configuration. 

[bleuze]

Im not able to point destination to esxi host because the host is managed by vcenter server. But I learned in another forum thread that if I disconnect the host from vcenter cerver then I can do it

[elehpantskneeca]

You shouldn’t have to disconnect from vCenter. Just point it to esxi using vCenter. It will do the same. vCenter doesn’t proxy anyway. You will see a good throughput and it will stay local. 

[bleuze]

Nope, If I try setting destination as esxi host it is refused with error message: The access to the host resource setting is restricted to the server '172.xx.xx.xx' that is managing the host. Use the management server as a destination. 

So I did the disconnect thing and now I can select the esxi host as destination... but I get another error after it starts, I guess I'll do search for "FAILED: An error occurred during the conversion:'Missing Vstor2 driver or not started.'"

[bleuze]

thanks for your reply elephantskneeca. I know understand what you mean by "Just point it to esxi using vCenter". And yes, Ideally that would work, What I didn't mention is that it wasn't working for me because on my vcenter server the esxi host in question would show as "not responding". That is why I wanted to point converter directly at the host rather than through vcenter. Everytime I reboot the vcsa and the host would show for about 5 minutes and then go into the not responding state. Anyway, I am glad to know for future that I can "Just point it to esxi using vCenter" and then all the conversion process happens on the local subnet rather than going back and forth through the remote vcenter server.

At any rate, It did work to disconnect the host from vcenter (I had to do it within the five minutes after a reboot), then the converter was able to directly use the esxi host as destination. And for some reason the missing vstor diver issue went away eventually. First I got around it by installing converter directly on the physical machines I was converting but then I later used it on the original computer and it didn't complain anymore.

As for the host being in a not responding state. That was solved by removing the host from inventory and then re-adding it. I was about to re-connect the host so I could focus on troubleshooting the "not responding" issue, but then I cancelled when I got the warning "Reconnecting a host will override any resource management changes that were made directly on the host while it was disconnected". So I removed it from inventory and rejoined and that fixed everything, strange. This was a new host that I set up in our head office. When I moved it to its final destination I changed the management network and the VM networks to the appropriate new local subnet and updated everything in dns. I expected Vcenter server would just use DNS to find the host at its new IP address. And it did but for some reason the host would "not respond" after five minutes. This was consistent behaviour over at least 10 reboots of vcenter server. Somehow, removing and re-adding to inventory fixed that. Its been connected steadily for almost 24 hours now after the re-join.