Moving NSX Manager

[oneben007]

We have NSX Manager 6.2.0 and are going to upgrade the 6.3.1 in the next few days.

We run VMware Integrated OpenStack and we currently have NSX Manger on a single host in the Management Cluster. What we need to do is decommission the host that NSX Manager is running on and also distributed routers, edges ect and move all these to new hosts in the same Management Cluster.

Once we work out the best way to do this we will add 3 new hosts to the Management Cluster and we want to move all things NSX to these new hosts.

Can this be done without anything breaking?

[Sreec · Accepted solution]

I hope you are doing upgrade after decommissioning new host, not prior to decommission ?  Do we have a shared storage here ? By any chance vCenter Server is part of this movement ? What i would do would be as below

1) Present new Host to existing mgmt cluster

2)If shared storage is not available -power off all nsx components one by one and do a svmotion to new lun (newly added host.)

3)Power on all the nsx components after adding to inventory

4)Confirm their functionality is intact

5)Decommission old host

6) Finally you can follow upgrade best practice and perform NSX upgrade.

if shared storage is available

1)Present new Host to existing mgmt cluster

2)Confirm NSX vibs are loaded

3)Vmotion NSX components to new host

4)Decommission old host

5)Follow upgrade best practice and perform NSX upgrade

In addition to all these you need to take care of networking for new host (both on virtual and physical - adding host to DVS,ensure we have enough vtep IP,vlan configuration etc)

[oneben007]

Hello and thank you for your reply.

We have a few stages as NSX is also going to be upgraded. We are running NSX 6.2.4 and are going to upgrade to 6.3.1

As the new NSX 6.3.1 will have new vibs we will also need to update which we have now done.

We have already added the two new hosts and they have been prepared with vibs and added to the vDS. We have added many new hosts so we are confident that this part is fine.

Considering we have the 2 new hosts now in the Management Cluster can we simply migrate all the NSX components from the old host that we are decommissioning to the new hosts?

I guess our main concern is the networking when moving NSX Manager and the components. Will there be any confusion as the new hosts will have differing IPs than the old  or is NSX smart enough to know that they are part of the same cluster and will change routing ect accordingly?

We do not have shared storage so we are using local SSD's on each host. In addition our vCenter is also running on the same host that we are going to decommission and we will need to move this also but as we have done this before we are fine with that.

Thanks again for your response. I have spent weeks researching this and preparing and your answer has helped so now I guess i will complete the task later today or tomorrow.

I have tried to provide you with further information above in a hope you understand a little more. If you have additional recommendations based on my answer above please share and once we have moved everything ( or at least attempt ) I will report back here and hopefully I can say that due to your advice everything went smoothly.

[Sreec]

Appreciate that detailed update.

Considering we have the 2 new hosts now in the Management Cluster can we simply migrate all the NSX components from the old host that we are decommissioning to the new hosts?

I guess our main concern is the networking when moving NSX Manager and the components. Will there be any confusion as the new hosts will have differing IPs than the old  or is NSX smart enough to know that they are part of the same cluster and will change routing ect accordingly?

All you need to ensure is that you have identical network settings for newly added host -that will make sure all outbound/inbound access for all components will work fine after the movement. Always do decommission of old host as a last step irrespective which order you are following.

[oneben007]

OK thanks again..Ill attempt this later today or tomorrow and let you know how things went.

Yes the new host will have identifcal network settings as they will be attached and using the same vDS however the new hosts will have different internal IPs. Does this matter?

All our ESXi Hosts use internal IPs so because the new hosts have different IPs and either host will NOT have the same IP as the host that I will be decommissioning would this matter?

[Sreec]

That is fine - NSX Controller IP  must have connectivity to the NSX Manager and to the management interfaces on the ESXi hosts- So just take care of that part .

[oneben007]

I was just thinking.

Rather than moving the NSX Manager would it be better to deploy a new NSX Manager and restore from a backup That way I can guarantee that all the other components will be deployed on the new hosts. Just throwing it out there.

[Sreec]

AFAIK i doubt that would work. Because when you take back-up all NSX components will be running on old host and that would be the information in NSX-DB . Once after deploying new NSX manager - you still need to do it on old host and follow all the steps to move the components to new hosts.

[benjamin000]

Just to update everyone.

vMotion NSX Manager worked without am issue.

As the guys above said - just make sure the networking is the same and dns is working.

It seems i was worrying for nothing as it is just the same a regular vmotion. Now just have to migrate all the routers and other VIO networking stuff.

Thanks to all for the help. Without them I would be still procrastinating whether to go ahead.

[Sreec]

Thanks for the update and good to hear things are moving in the right direction.