Urgent!!! Upgrading from ESX 2 to ESX 3.

[default-user]

Hi everyone. My organization is upgrading from ESX 2 to ESX 3. We've upgraded most of our hosts to ESX 3. However we have some VMs still on our ESX 2 host that we're planning to import to our ESX 3 host. Does anyone know the procedures for importing a VM from ESX 2 to ESX 3? Your QUICK help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Dave_Mishchenko]

If you're using shared storage and the ESX 3.0 servers can see the 2.5 LUNs, then you can use dmotion. That's discussed more in this thread:

http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=660687

[jasonboche]

If dmotion isn't an option, simple cold migate the VMs to the new storage, upgrade virtual hardware, upgrade vmware tools, and away you go! The cold migration piece will handle converting the .vmdk from vmfs2 to vmfs3.

[default-user]

The thing is we don't have extra storage. We'll be using an existing storage (MSA1000) but the ESX 2 and ESX 3 servers will be able to see them. Another thing I need to mention is 2 of the VMs are clustered (Microsoft cluster). They were and will continue be on 2 separate hosts and sharing the same storage. So I guess the upgrade process will be our best bet here. Any thoughts?

[Texiwill · Accepted solution]

Hello,

For ESX v3, find some temporary storage to hold the VMs. You can use an NFS or iSCSI based solution. If you have a box with enough storage you can mount the partition and cold migrate them then upgrade to VMFS3 and put them back.

You could make a backup and do the same.

Microsoft Clustering in ESX v3 is different than ESX v2 in that the C: drives should be on LOCAL storage (NOT SAN) and the Shared drives should be RDMS.

So keep that in your thoughts as well.

When I upgraded my ESX Servers connected to an MSA1000, I had to setup another box to use as an NFS/iSCSI share server and then everything went well.

You can also upgrade in place, but personally I rather move VMs to new storage and reconfigure my SAN to better support the new configuration. Either, do nothing until you get a good backup.

Best regards,

Edward