We just upgraded to 7.0U3 and need to reduce the storage footprint. What's the best way?

[aj800]

We recently upgraded to vCenter Appliance 7.0U3 using the Small/Large deployment size (4vCPUs, 19GB RAM, 2TB Storage).  I misinterpreted the storage requirements and deployed using Thick Provisioning, so now our VCSA is using 2TB of space on one of our shared datastores, which is way too large, given it only needs to be using no more than 200GB (our other similar ones are at about 115GB) for a long while.

I also need to change the name of the system.  We've been upgrading it since we first migrated to 6.5 from Windows, and our network has changed and consolidated.  So I need to rename the VCSA since we ran into an issue with accessing the web client since the name of the VCSA uses the old FQDN.

Is there a way to do both of these tasks safely at the same time?  I was thinking of just running another upgrade the same way (using the upgrade/migration UI tool) and re-deploying as Thin Provisioned (which we did successfully in the other environments and saved space that way), but it's not really an upgrade, so I'm not sure how the upgrade tool would work in that case.  Either way, we need to both, so assistance with either or both would help very much.  Thanks.

[a_p_]

An upgrade is only possible from an earlier major version, so that's not an option.

However, if you have a vSphere Essentials Plus (or better) license, you could simply do a storage migration with specifying Thin Provisioning as the target format.

André

[aj800]

Thanks.  Ours is vCenter Server Standard license and the hosts have Enterprise Plus.  Will that work?

[a_p_]

That should work perfectly.

I missed your second question:
With the new vCSA version you can change the FQDN from the VAMI console (at port 5480).
Make sure you have a backup, or a snapshot prior to changing the settings, and also make sure that the required DNS records are in place, i.e. forward and reverse DNS.

André

[aj800]

Yes DNS can be done fairly easily, and also, the certificate for the VCSA currently has SANs for 2 names (old and current)... though, we're changing the naming convention away from both, so we will need a new cert generated to cover the new name and the current.

Are there instructions for changing the VCSA from Thick Provisioned to Thin?  There are 17 total disks and I'm unsure which ones are currently active and house the data in use, or if you have to do each one at a time?  Please assist.  Thanks.

[a_p_]

I'd switch to thin provisioning for all of the VM's disks.

André

[aj800]

Is there a guide or a VMware KB for safely doing this that you or someone else could point me to?  I would appreciate some step by step instructions.  I've never done it before.  Thanks.

[mOUs3yNATOR]

I guess the safest way is to do it one at a time using this method without trying to do it in bulk.

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2014832

[aj800 · Accepted solution]

So I ended up just doing a storage vMotion to another datastore to change the provisioning to Thin per this article (it went from using 2TB to 112.4GB):

https://www.alphr.com/change-thick-thin-provisioning-vmware/

Paraphrased for vSphere 7 and based on my experience:

1. Power off the virtual machine (not required, but best practice. The VCSA cannot be powered off to perform vMotion since vMotion/migration cannot be initiated from a ESXi host directly.)
2. Create snapshot of the VM (do not include the VM's memory if powered on)
3. Right-click the virtual machine and click “Migrate”, or click Actions to display the menu from the VM's summary panel.
4. Select “Change storage only.”  Click Next.
5. Select a datastore that is different from the one that’s currently in use.
6. From the 'Select virtual disk format' drop-down menu, select “Thin Provisioning”.
7. Select Batch Configure (or the 'Configure Per Disk' option if you only need to change select disks of a VM).
8. Ensure Compatibility Checks on the new location and configuration are successful.  Click Next.
9. Review the Ready to complete page summary.  Click Finish to begin the migration/conversion.

I think I can do the VCSA host name change in VAMI now without having to redeploy the VCSA.  We need to get our cert for the new name first, so I'll probably open a new thread if I run into problems with that.  Thanks for your help, folks.