MIGRATE FROM VSA 5.5 TO VSAN 6?

[AnnRaz]

Hi,

I need your knowledge , i need migrate from a plataform VSA 5.5 (Host ESX 5.1 and Vcenter 5.5) to a new hardware with VSAN 6 (Vsphere and Vcenter 6) . In a KB 2068923 indicate the way to migrate is create a Cluster VSAN in the plataform of the VSA . My question is can I Create a new Vcenter 6, create de Cluster VSAN and add the host from the plataform VSA for the migration?

I dont understand how can i proceed because in the plataform VSA i have many VM critical.

Thanks! 

[AnatolyVilchins]

Hi! Actually there are Best Practices for this process:

VMware KB: Migration from vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA) to VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN)‌

(I know you saw it, just want everybody who reads this thread in future would see it as well).

So, I think you do can do what you want, but I think its better to follow an article

Migration of a VSA cluster to a VSAN cluster using the same ESXi hosts

Caution: During application of these steps, there is a period of time where there is no redundancy for one or more of your VSA datastores. Ensure that you have a valid backup of your environment before you proceed with these steps.

To migrate all existing virtual machines running on VSA to one VSAN enabled ESXi 5.5 Update 1 or later host:

1. Open a vSphere Web client connection to your vCenter Server 5.5 Update 1.
2. Select one of the existing VSA node ESXi hosts as your first new VSAN host.
   
   Note: The single ESXi 5.5 host you nominate to be the first VSAN node must have a sufficient amount of storage to accommodate all VSA virtual machines. If all the virtual machines to be migrated must remain powered on, it is wise to choose the most powerful physical host available in the cluster.
   
3. Migrate all virtual machines running on the selected host to one of the other two running VSA node ESXi hosts, except the running VSA virtual appliance.
4. Place the the chosen VSA Node ESXi host in to Maintenance mode.
   
   Note: This action shuts down the virtual appliance running on that host. If this does not complete, shut down the appliance manually.
   
   
5. Power down the ESXi host.
6. If not already installed, insert the new Virtual SAN certified hardware:
   • Solid State Drives (SSD)
   • Magnetic Disks(MD)
   • Storage controllers
     
     
7. Install the physical host with the latest build of ESXi 5.5 (Update 1 or later).
8. Configure a VMkernel Interface and IP Address on the ESXi host to be used by VSAN.
   
   For more information, see Configuring Virtual SAN VMkernel networking (2058368).
   
   
9. Configure a storage policy that contains Forced Provisioning to be enabled.
10. Configure a separate VMkernel Interface for NFS and vMotion on the ESXi 5.5 host configured to run VSAN.
11. In vCenter Server, create a new Cluster and enable VSAN.
    
    For more information, see Enabling or disabling a Virtual SAN cluster (2058322).
    
12. Apply the required license to the VSAN cluster.
13. Move the newly deployed ESXi 5.5 host to the VSAN Cluster and allocate the storage (If using the manual claiming method).
14. Ensure that the VSA NFS Datastores are correctly mounted to the new VSAN enabled ESXi 5.5 host.
    
    For more information, see Mounting VMware vSphere Storage Appliance NFS datastores on ESXi hosts manually (2004833).
    
    
15. Migrate all virtual machines that are hosted on the VSA NFS Datastores to the VSAN Datastore. Choose the created storage policy where Forced Provisioning is enabled. In the vSphere Web Client, click Change both host and datastore to migrate the virtual machine, attached disks and related files.
16. After the virtual machines are migrated, detach the VSA NFS mount from the single ESXi 5.5 VSAN enabled host.
    
    Warning: All virtual machines previously hosted on VSA storage are now running on the single VSAN enabled ESXi 5.5. Carefully monitor the resource usage to ensure that the production virtual machines are not negatively impacted.
    
    
17. Place any remaining VSAN node hosts into Maintenance mode.
18. Power down and install their  VSAN certified hardware.
19. Repeat steps 7 to 10 to update the remaining hosts to ESXi 5.5 and configure the hosts for VSAN.
20. Add the hosts to the VSAN cluster.
21. Wait for data to sync to bring the virtual machines into compliance with the configured storage policy.
    
    Migration from VSA to VSAN is complete.
    
    
22. Change the storage policy to disable Forced Provisioning, if necessary.