Deploy vSAN with existing vCenter environment

[Mouchel]

We will soon be deploying our new vSAN datacenter. We currently have a vSphere 6.0 deployment on blade servers using Netapp array as storage. Our new setup consists of new rackmount servers, all flash drives. Just thinking about migration scenarios. Our current vCenter server is on Windows server. We have about 350 VMs.

1. Migrate existing Windows vCenter to VCSA. Add new hosts running ESXi 6.7 into existing vCenter but in new cluster. Create vSAN. Storage migrate VMs over to new hosts and new VSAN datastore. Remove old hosts.

2. Install ESXi 6.7 on new hosts. Create new VCSA and new SSO and create VSAN at same time. Migrate VMs over to new VCSA and vSAN  via Powercli.

Not sure which is best and would appreciate any advice.

[TheBobkin]

Hello Mouchel​,

There are benefits and drawbacks to both approaches - personally I would aim to start afresh whenever possible but how strongly I would feel about this in reality would surely depend on the feasibility and effort involved versus upgrading current.

daphnissov wrote a nice blog on a lot of pros/cons that wouldn't always be considered (but that one should :D):

Upgrading vSphere through migration

I would also advise having more of a general read of fresh vs upgrade on Communities, other blogs and Reddit - it really can be a "it depends" which approach weighs is *better* depending on your present and goal configuration.

Bob

[chris122686]

You may want to check for this two KB

VMware Knowledge Base - Adding additional hosts to an existing vSAN cluster

VMware Knowledge Base - Adding existing vSAN hosts to a new vSAN cluster after rebuilding vCenter Server