Migrate vCenter 6.0 from 2008 to 2012

[MihirP]

Hello,

We have vCenter 6.0 running server 2008, with database on SQL server 2012.

I want to know how can I migrate vCenter 6.0 from 2008 to 2012. Step by step guide will be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Mihir

[RyanH84]

Hi,

How advanced is your configuration generally speaking? Is it a single vCenter with a simple SSO configuration?

I wrote a blog post not so long ago which covered moving from vCenter 5.5 u1 on Server 2008 R2 to 5.5 u2 on a new 2012 R2 host. I appreciate that version 6 has extra features to consider (PSC) , but the process is farily the same. The bulk of your vCenter configuration lies on the database and vCenter is effectively just software that drives it and the connectivity.

The main things to consider are the backups of your SQL Database and the SSL certificates, Inventory, PSC configuration, SSO configuration, etc on your vCenter before continuing.

Is your vCenter virtualised at the moment?

[MihirP]

vcenter server is VM.

Single PSC as externally deployed seperate VM.

So it will be same migration steps as mentioned for 5.0?

https://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc_50%2FGUID-8E6B2...

[RyanH84 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Not quite the same as 5.1

The important thing here is that if your PSC is separate deployed and your VC is a VM then you can shut it down, take a SQL DB backup and snapshot the VM and then build a new VC on a new VM with the same information.

Just install the vCenter components and link it to your existing DB. If it doesn't work, then shut off that VM, restore your SQL DB and power up your old vCenter.