VMware Cloud Community
DefenderAtkins
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

VMWare migration project

Hi all,

I have just been handed a VMWare migration project with the below details. I have limited VMWare experience and I still got this project but anyway..

Current setup:

  • There is vSphere A, in which it has 5 ESXi hosts running 5.5 and roughly 50 VMs.
  • This environment has multiple networks with vSwitches.
  • It also has 7 datastores attached to it.
  • Some VMs have volumes assigned to different datastores. For example, OS drive is assigned to datastore A and storage drive is assigned to datastore B.
  • The vCenter and ESXi hosts have 192.168.xxx.xxx addresses.

New setup:

  • Then there is vSphere B, to which 20 VMs from vSphere A needs to migrate. There are 3 ESXi hosts running 5.5.
  • This environment is vanilla, no network or VMs configured on it.
  • It has 2 datastores attached to it, 1 x RAID10 to run the VMs and 1 x RAID 6 for backup and storage repository.
  • The new environment will have 10.20.xxx.xxx addressing.

Both environments are physically sitting in the same building.

The requirements:

  • Migrated VMs must be accessible from 192.168.xxx.xxx addresses.
  • The migration needs to have as little downtime as possible since the VMs are production VMs.
  • There is only one license for VCenter. When the migration is completed, a new vCenter needs to be setup in in the new environment and license from the old vCenter will be used on this one. The old vCenter will be decommissioned.

I am planning to add the new ESXi hosts and datastores to the current vCenter. Then migrate the VMs the new ESXi hosts and datastores via the current vCenter. Change the addressing of those migrated and do a trial run.

So what is the best way to tackle this? Best practice? How would I migrate VMs that have different volumes assigned to different datastores?

Thanks.

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

There's a lot of complexity that you've named here, but it sounds like what you're proposing to do and what you want to occur should be fairly straightforward.

Attach the old hosts to the new vCenter. Migrate the VMs to new new hosts declaring the new port group you wish (keeping in mind if the 192.168 network is not available there, you will not have network access when the move completes. When vMotioning them to the new location, know that source and destination vMotion vmkernel ports must have connectivity. As for the one vCenter license, stand up the new vCenter anyhow and allow it to operate in evaluation mode. You'll have 60 days to complete your migrations.

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Reply
daphnissov
Immortal
Immortal
Jump to solution

There's a lot of complexity that you've named here, but it sounds like what you're proposing to do and what you want to occur should be fairly straightforward.

Attach the old hosts to the new vCenter. Migrate the VMs to new new hosts declaring the new port group you wish (keeping in mind if the 192.168 network is not available there, you will not have network access when the move completes. When vMotioning them to the new location, know that source and destination vMotion vmkernel ports must have connectivity. As for the one vCenter license, stand up the new vCenter anyhow and allow it to operate in evaluation mode. You'll have 60 days to complete your migrations.

Reply
0 Kudos