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kastlr
Expert
Expert

How to move several large W2K3 VM's between two isolated ESX Clusters?

Hi everybody,

what would be the recommended procedure to transfer 10+ VM's with a total capacity of appr. 900GB between two isolated ESX clusters running different server hardware?

We're thinking about the following procedures and would appreciate any feedback about the Pro's and Con's.

VMWare converter[/u]

- connect to ESX Cluster 1

- convert VM's from ESX server or VirtualCenter virtual machine[/b] to VMware standalone virtual machine, Workstation 6.x[/b] format including resize disks to minimum

- place files on USB disk and transfer it to second site with a windows server running converter

- connect to ESX cluster 2

- convert VM's from VMware standalone virtual machine, Workstation 6.x[/b] to ESX server or VirtualCenter virtual machine[/b] format including resize disks to original size

Native[/u]

- connect to ESX Server console on Site 1

- browse to datastores where VM's are stored

- tar and gzip the files of each VM

- place files on a mobile disk and transfer it the second site

- connect to ESX Server console on Site 2 and copy zipped VM's for extraction

- unzip files on and place it on a proper datastore

- adjust the *.vmx files regarding the location of the files

- adjust the *,vmx files regarding CPU affinity

- register the VM's

We don't know what exactly will happen during the double convertion when using the Converter, but there seems to be no way to use the converter between two ESX Clusters without a LAN/SAN connection.

And we're also unsure if the convert process to/from VMware Workstation6 format will delete vital informations from the VM's


Therefor we developed the native method also.

We really appreciate any feedback, and sorry for my bad english.


Greetings from Germany. (CET)


Hope this helps a bit.
Greetings from Germany. (CEST)
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6 Replies
DCasota
Expert
Expert

Hi

Maybe a backup software like vRangerPro or Trilead would be faster during the backup/recover itself. Both are able to backup VMs to a smb share and I guess an attached USB drive should be possible, too.

Both products can be downloaded as trial (www.vizioncore.com or www.trilead.com).

Hope it helps.

Daniel

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kastlr
Expert
Expert

Hi Daniel,

because I'm not familiar with these products, will they also perform the required adjustments to the *.vmx files regarding file location (and CPU affinity)?

And does they use some compression mechanisum?

If these tools simply speed up the backup & restore process because they transfer the files faster than the native tools it would be nice.

But than we need to install these tools on both sites and spend extra time to learn how to handle them.

Thanks


Hope this helps a bit.
Greetings from Germany. (CEST)
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ranga1978
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

You can use VCB backups as well. Take a full vm back up transfer it to the usb and import at the other cluster. I think this will take the same amount of space as getting the files and zipping it to usb. not too sure about what kind of compression vcb does.

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DCasota
Expert
Expert

Hi

Yes, both products will handle the file location within the .vmx file. Concerning the cpu affinity I'm note sure. Maybe this has to be set manually after the recover.

Vizioncore's vRangerPro is faster than Trilead VM Explorer when transferring files, both are easy to handle. I'm pretty sure that with vRangerPro you will be faster with download and installation than transferring 900GB with the other tools Smiley Happy

-> Compression and simultaneous transfers are built-in.

Hope it helps.

Daniel

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krival96
Contributor
Contributor

Best to tar gzip and copy it to portable drive and untar it


kris

http://www.vdi.co.nz

kris http://www.vdi.co.nz
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Texiwill
Leadership
Leadership

Hello,

I would go the VMware Converter route as the native option will not work very well as ESX can not successfully write to a USB device. Not with ESX 3.5. U2 anyways. It gives all sorts of write errors.


Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

--
Edward L. Haletky
vExpert XIV: 2009-2023,
VMTN Community Moderator
vSphere Upgrade Saga: https://www.astroarch.com/blogs
GitHub Repo: https://github.com/Texiwill
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