Migrating VMWare 5.0 Cluster from SAN/Hosts to VMWare 6.0 Cluster with new SAN/Hosts

[tscott2340]

I have a customer that has 3 ESXi 5.0 hosts and a vSphere cluster with Standard licensing. These 3 hosts connect to an EMC SAN via iSCSI.

I have a new UCS Chassis with 3 blades and a new EMC SAN connecting via Fiber Channel.

What is the best way to accomplish a migration to the new cluster with minimal downtime?

I just did this recently for a customer (3 new hosts and new SAN but they had enterprise licensing and I didn't build a new vSphere).. That customer also was using iSCSI on both old and new SANs.. I just added an iSCSI connection on each of the 3 new hosts to the iSCSI switch on the old environment and then the 3 new hosts saw both old and new storage.. But again, they had enterprise licensing..

I was planning on adding an iSCSI connection from the new UCS chassis to the iSCSI switch of the "current" SAN but unsure of what route to take after that..

I can build my new vSphere 6 on the new hardware.. I would then get the full functionality for X days.. However, I can't add one of the existing hosts because they wouldn't have storage motion..

I'm sure this has been done many times.. If someone can provide the best route to take on this I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

[npadmani]

I can build my new vSphere 6 on the new hardware.. I would then get the full functionality for X days.. However, I can't add one of the existing hosts because they wouldn't have storage motion..

I am a bit confused by your statement that storage vMotion won't be there, it's there in Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus edition.

see the comparison chart

https://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/compare

I have a customer that has 3 ESXi 5.0 hosts and a vSphere cluster with Standard licensing. These 3 hosts connect to an EMC SAN via iSCSI.

I have a new UCS Chassis with 3 blades and a new EMC SAN connecting via Fiber Channel.

What is the best way to accomplish a migration to the new cluster with minimal downtime?

now in your environment, as you said you are planning to build vSphere 6 environment fully, so I would say this can be accomplished without having any downtime, if your old and new hosts are meeting vMotion cpu compatibility requirements, if not then you might have to bare some minimal downtime.

1) Prepare your vSphere 6 new environment, it will be in initial 60 days evaluation so you get full enterprise plus features. although all of those are not going to be needed

2) add your old hosts into new vCenter inventory, and make old ISCSI SAN datastores visible to new set of ESXi hosts.

3) vMotion VMs from old hosts to new hosts (if you use vSphere web client, it will allow you to do cross host vMotion, in single go Host and Storage both can be migrated), if no vMotion compatibility met, do Cold Migration)

4) remove your old hosts from new vCenter inventory if you don't want them there.

[BudC]

Make sure to match the the dvportgroups as well. Just went through upgrading 3 hosts from 5 to 6 using new UCS hardware. I had fiber on both though.