Migrating all catalog items to another datastore in same storage profiles

[Pokiegogrzyba]

Hi,

is any possibility to migrate all catalog items (temps and iso files) to another datastore cluster which has same storage profile (silver)?  Because I have 2 datastore clusters with same storage profile (silver) and I want to remove one of this cluster.

I found this kb: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=205809... but they only wrote about migration media files between different storage profiles.

Have vCD 5.6.4

[IamTHEvilONE · Accepted solution]

Do you happen to use Fast Provisioning?  That's probably the only catch I can think of.

Environments which do not have Linked Clones or shadows created from them, you can just Storage vMotion them between Datastores of the same Storage Policy.  Just make sure that the Datastore or Datastore clusters are visible in vCloud Director first under that Storage Policy.

When using linked clones, I can't remember the exact process ... I think I have it at my desk somewhere (I'm at home now).

[admin]

I believe new shadow VMs get instantiated on other datastores in the datastore cluster if it doesn't exist when we we migrate the linked clone VM's across the datastores.

[Pokiegogrzyba]

I contacted with VMware Support and I received this answer (as you can see process to move media is impractical, especially when you have a lot of clients and you must check all their files...):

2 Storage Clusters

Gold - Gold Storage Policy

Silver - Silver  StoragePolciy

1 Catalog with storage as Gold

Task

1) Change storage policy of catalog to silver

ISO still has not changed datastore or storage policy

2)Updated ISO by adding test in the description box - No change in any of the iso's properties

3)Created new catalog called Silver using the silver storage policy

4)Moved test.iso from test cataog (gold) to copy-move catalog(silver)

The task verified in Vcenter and now test.iso shows as silver storage policy and has moved to a datastore with the silver policy

Test 2

1)Chnage the storage policy of the copy-move catalog to Gold

2)Disabled storage  of a datastores that belong to silver storage policy

3)Put into maintenance mode all datastores belonging to silver storage policy in vcenter

No iso's were migrated from this datastore automatically

When updating the ISO this did not change Storage Policy

Test 3

2 datastores in Gold storage cluster

iscii has iso-test - put this datastor into maintenance mode

Update iso in vcloud, this forced a move of the iso to other datastore

Conclusion

To change the storage policy of a media file a new catalog must be created and the media file manually moved.

To change the datastore of media that belong to the same storage policy in a storage cluster, put the datastore into maintenance mode and update the iso in Vcloud. The media file will then relocate to the next available datastore in the cluster.

[Pokiegogrzyba]

As you can see in my last post this process is not easy, fast and it's impractical.

[ussignal_dfox]

Just to confirm this is correct. The only remaining question I had so far hasn't been answered from VMware.

My process (I've had to do this twice)

Instruct users that you've migrated storage:

Maintenance mode only moves Virtual Machines or vCloud Virtual Machine templates (they're just VMs).

Instruct customers on how to "Move to catalog..." and choose either a different existing catalog within the org, or create a new one.

- This is sometimes not 100% as it can error out.

- Make sure to unmount the ISOs**

- Inform them they may need to re-upload ISO's and delete error'd entries.

As for the ISO not being used, I'm trying to confirm the following:

ISO is on an "old" datastore that has been set to maintenance.

User maps ISO from catalog to VM.

I've seen a task kick off to copy a file.... I can't tell if vCloud Director is actually migrating the ISO off the datastore automatically now.