Trouble Migrating/Moving VCSA from VXrail cluster to new VSAN cluster (HP Hardware)

[knixon3686]

Hello, 

I am trying to migrate / move VCSA/PSC from VXrail VSAN cluster to newly built VSAN cluster running HP hardware. The goal is migrate everything off VXrail cluster to new HP VSAN cluster and decommission VXrail cluster.

Overview

We deployed VXrail a few years back and VCenter was stood up as part of the deployment. I built/configured new VSAN cluster (HP hardware) in existing VCenter, so VCenter now has two cluster VXrail VSAN cluster and HP VSAN cluster. The HP VSAN cluster is using it own networking, I configured VDS switches that mimic the configuration of VDS switches in VXrail cluster... same port groups/vlans. I have successfully migrated the application VM’s/Servers off VXrail cluster over to the HP cluster, most of the servers were migrated  via live migrations and we had few servers we had to migrate while powered off . Those migrations were successful, so all workloads from the VXrail cluster have been migrated to  new HP cluster and are operational. All thats left is moving VCSA/PSC 

Prior to moving VCSA I researched to determine best method for moving / migrating VCSA from one VSAN cluster to another. I found a few posts on the forum suggesting that cloning was best option. So I ended up cloning the VCSA\PSC from VXrail VSAN cluster to the new HP VSAN cluster. Once the clones finished I powered off the VCSA/PSC in VXrail cluster and powered on VCSA\PSC clones in HP cluster. I first powered on PSC then VCSA,  I checked the services for PSC when it came online and all looked good. Likewise I could access the PSC landing page via web browser, but VCenter would not come online. I could ping it but VCenter was not coming online at all. I tried accessing the VAMI and could login with root credentials, but all that was available was restore. It was as if a VCSA restore has been initiated, that's was the only option I had.

At that point I rolled back.. powering down the cloned PSC and VCSA in HP cluster and powered up VCSA/PSC in VXrail cluster. Once I rolled back VCenter came back online, etc.

I am trying to determine what went wrong why VCenter detected a restore had been started. I tried engaging support, but to be honest its been a struggle and I have asked to have ticket escalated.

Does anyone have an experience with this scenario, or have any suggestions ?

Thanks in advance,

[jburen]

In https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2058684 they also talk about cloning the vCenter VM. But you have to change the mac address of the cloned VM to match the original VM.

[AhhhOK]

If you can live vMotion other VM's across vsan clusters I do not understand why you would not be able to just live vMotion the vCenter other than a EVC difference which I have encountered.  If that is not doable, instead of cloning have you considered using vCenter HA?  I have used it to migrate vCenters across vsan clusters that were using different versions of EVC which prevented my live motion.  It is not that hard to setup and get synced. Failover to the desired Cluster and turn it off. If worked great for me.  I did test it a couple times with a POC vCenter I had stood up.  Once I saw it work I felt comfortable moving my vCenter and had no issues.  Not sure what version of vCenter you are on?