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Ineedhelpbadly
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Enthusiast

URGENT HELP - VM migration to a different host

I have been asked to carry out a migration to a different host machine.  I have never done this before, so unsure.  I found an article: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/5850444, but if anyone has done this, it would be very appreciative if that person could offer a bit of advice and tips for doing this.

 

Thank you.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Welcome to the Community,

some details about your environment, and what exactly you need/want to do will help.

  • Do you want to migrate a VM from one host to another in a vCenter Server managed environment?
  • What vSphere license edition do you have?
  • Is the VM stored on shared storage, or do you need to migrate the VM's files too?

André

Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thank you for your reply.

 

  • Do you want to migrate a VM from one host to another in a vCenter Server managed environment? - yes.  But the vcentre will be in a different domain
  • What vSphere license edition do you have? - 6.5
  • Is the VM stored on shared storage, or do you need to migrate the VM's files too? - I think it will stay on the same storage.
 
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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Sorry, but I still don't really understand what you want/need to do.

In your first post you mentioned that you need to "carry out a migration", which is usually a pretty straight forward task, especially with a vSphere edition which supports vMotion. . But now you talk about a different domain for vCenter!?

Please explain as detailed as possible what exactly you have now, and what you want to end up with.

André

Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello.

 

Let me try to explain it a little better.

We have domain a with a version of vcentre that's inside our own cloud infrastructure.  We want to decommission this.  Currently we are going through the stages of decommissioning servers and if needed, move some to a new vcentre, that's inside a different domain.

They share the same networking, the same storage.

What I have done is, make a new vm (I realise how wrong I might have got this.) inside the vcentre, then install a new copy of vcentre into that vm.  In essence, vcentre inside vcentre.  But I think I have got myself a bit confused somewhere.  Now, I want to move the vms that would need to be kept and migrate them to the new vcentre.  BUT, I don't think it can be done how I want it to be done.  Or, how I have implemented it.

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Just to clarify, VMs run on ESXi hosts, which may be managed by a vCenter Server. The VMs do not run on vCenter Server.
Something that I want to mention at this point, is that "vCenter Server for Windows" (this is what I assume you installed) is deprecated, and not even available anymore with the current vSphere version 7 . So rather than starting with the Windows version, you should consider to deploy the vCenter Server Appliance instead.

That said, what about ESXi hosts? Will the current ESXi hosts be migrated over to the new vCenter Server instance, or do you also have new ESXi hosts? In case that you have setup a completely new environment (vCenter + hosts), and want to "move" all the VMs to the new environment, you may (only an option, since I don't know what exactly you have) simply shut down the VMs, unregister them from the current vCenter Server inventory, and register them to on the new one.

André

Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Even if they are on different domains?!  That won't break anything?

Also, why is this different: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/5850444 to what you have suggested?

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

The KB article deals with migrating a vCenter database, certificates, ... from one Windows server to another one, but - from what I understand - this is not what you are doing. What I understand is that you created a new environment, and want to migrate the VMs over to it, without changing them!?

André

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Ineedhelpbadly
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Im going to be honest, that might be what we want to do.

I have adopted a new environment with very little vm experience outside of doing admin in a new senior role.  And honestly, I'm trying to get my hear around it all and kinda failing. TBH.

 

This is why I came here; they want to start the migrations tomorrow.

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

@Ineedhelpbadly 

Moderator: Please do not start a second thread on the same topic/issue - the duplicate instance you created has been archived.


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Ineedhelpbadly
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Enthusiast

Also, when it says point to a database, do I make a new one, or, point it to the sites database?

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