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andong
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Resolution for VM UUID Change after migration

Hello Folks,

We are migrating some VMs across to a new Data center for DR purpose, however one application VM based on RHEL 7.8 has the license binding to UUID, we were told the UUID will change after VM migration to new host and the risk is the application license might be forfeited. 

It will be appreciated if you could help to provide some tips to keep the UUID after migration. My initial thought is to edit the VMX file but not sure if this is the best option. Also there is a KB from VMWare (https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1541), but it's related to VMWare Workstation and I am not sure if it's also applicable for ESXi.

Thanks a lot for the help!

 

 

 

 

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andong
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While I was waiting for advice I have done some testing for this and found the story is a little bit different in live system. Here is some behavior I observed, hopefully it could be helpful for someone who is interested in this topic.

I built a new RHEL 7.5 VM and tried a couple of methods to migrate the VM across two hosts in ESXi 7 environment, and here is the finding:

  • Scenario 1: Direct Migration – Cold (Power-off VM)
    • uuid.bios remains as it is
    • vc.uuid remains as it is
    • Provisioning network connection is required between two datacenters or hosts
    • Low BW is bearable
  • Scenario 2: Direct Migration – Hot (vMotion, live migration without downtime, however I can’t test it due to lab network limitation 
    • Assuming both uuid.bios and vc.uuid remain unchanged as cold migration case
    • Provisioning & vMotion network connections are required between two hosts
    • Min. 1Gbps link is required across datacentres or hosts and 10Gbps is recommended.
  • Scenario 3: Export/Import VM with default setting
    • uuid.bios changed to a new one
    • vc.bios changed to a new one
    • no network connection required between two hosts
  • Scenario 4: Export/Import VM with advanced setting (this is new to me but there are options to include BIOS UUID and MAC address)
    • uuid.bios remains as it is
    • vc.bios changed to a new one
    • no network connection required between two hosts
  • Scenario 5: Backup/Restoration
    • uuid.bios changed to a new one
    • vc.bios changed to a new one
    • no network connection required between two hosts

so I guess with the migration there will be no drama on UUID if it's possible, otherwise it might be required to manipulate the UUID manually by editing vmx file.

 

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