Migration-assistant

[jprovine7]

If you run the migration-assistant to gather the information you need for the upgrade but not do the migration then?  I want to collect the information for the upgrade but then do the upgrade at a later date.

[rajen450m]

Hi jprovine7, YES you can do it. vCenter upgrade process has two stages.

1. Deploy vCenter Server with an Embedded Platform Services Controller
2. Data transfer and appliance setup
   1. Data copy from source vCenter (VCSA 5.5) to target vCenter Server (VCSA 6.5)
   2. Set up target vCenter Server and start services
   3. Import copied data to target vCenter Server (VCS 6.5)

During “Deploy vCenter Server stage” Upgrade – Stage1, Until step10.  You can perform all the steps, once you click finish at step10, deployment of VMs starts and you can see the new vCenter deployment applied with the settings you selected.

But, if you start the next stage2 - you have to be ready as the setup will make target vcenter ready and will poweroff the source vcenter after import copied data.

I recommend you to do on a test vcenter and check the upgrade process than testing on production.

How to Upgrade VMware vCenter Appliance (VCSA) 5.5 to 6.5.0 u1e – HyperVMwareCloud

[jprovine7]

So how to you stop the migration-assistant, from the youtube videos I have been reviewing I don't see that option. I would love to do a test vcenter I just need to find a place to build it

[rajen450m]

Hi jprovine7​

I have given you the link above for the VCSA upgrade from 5.5 to VCSA 6.5.

During the process it throws an error saying "Make sure migration assistant is running on the VUM server." Where I have run the migration assistant in VUM server.

Follow the steps from this KB VMware Knowledge Base and start the migration-assitant wizard, similarly shown below:

As I said before once you reach step10, close the migration assistant in VUM which will interprets the upgrade process.

But, I am telling you again. Please replicate a production kind of vcenter and test the upgrade process.

Hope I answered your query, let me know if u r looking for any 🙂

Regards, Raj

[jprovine7]

I don't see where it shows how to stop the migration-assistant in the article you gave me

[rajen450m]

Close that wizard (migration-assistant), that's the stop option.

But, i recommend you to complete the upgrade, when you start it. Instead checking things first and doing later 🙂

You can always test on any test-environment.

[jprovine7]

Yes I agree, I just have to be able to create a test environment to do the testing in. So when you say testing, are you just talking about deploying a 6.5 appliance in the test environment?  So how do you test the migration-assistant if you can't use the current server? Bear with me I have never done any of this before.

[rajen450m]

I am telling you to create a 5.5 vcenter and perform upgrade to 6.5 using migration-assistant tool and process to understand before you upgrade your production.

[jprovine7]

Duh, yes I have done that in the past to try to upgrade to 6.0, which did not work FYI.  You are right on the money thanks again

[jprovine7]

I have been trying to test on a test environment but a running into issues, it appears to need have access to our login servers to install. I did an install on a virtual server with a different name, exported the database from the production server and used it on the test server with a different name (yeah having a different name on the server may be a problem so I changed the name it still had issues) So does the test network have to have all the components of the regular network, like ldap, dns, AD etc to work? Cause I don't have enough resources to create that kind of network. I just want to segregate me test server and deploy a test appliance, give them IP's that would let them talk and run that.  Any suggestions would be helpfull