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Mattffolliott
Contributor
Contributor

Migration from vSphere 6.0.0 to 7.0.1 - incompatible hardware, can you help?

Hi everyone, I am hoping someone on this forum can help, or if not point me to the correct forum.

I am a contractor and have been given a task to upgrade a cluster of 5 x ESXi 6.0.0 hosts ( HP DL380 Gen7) running vCenter 6.0.0 to vCenter / ESXi 7.0.1 on new hosts. We have 5 x new G10 DL380 ESXi hosts, so need to migrate vCenter and all VMs from the current ESXi 6.0.0 hosts to the new ESXi hosts. Both old and new ESXi hosts would be connected to the same SAN 

I have looked at a number of possible methods (vMotion etc), but they all involve upgrading from v6.0.0 to v6.5x which I can't do because it is not hardware compatible with G7 DL380 hosts. 

I did consider building the new ESXi hosts, connecting them to the SAN, and installing a vSphere v.7.0.1 and treating them like a separate cluster, then vMotioning the VMs from the old cluster to the new one. Would this work?!  We have a VCenter standard licence.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Matt

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virtsysadmin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Main issue with your plan is vCenter 7 can not manage ESXi 6.0 Hosts,

https://interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability?col=2,&row=1,&isHideGenSupported=false&isHideTechS...

if your new G10 DL380 can run ESXi 6.7 ,

  • VC 6.0 -> VC 6.7 -> add 2 to 3  6.7 ESXi  Hosts and migrate the VMs to them
  • Upgrade VC 6.7 to 7.0 and add the 7.0 ESXi -> Migrate vms 
  • upgrade the 6.7 ESXI Hosts to 7.0  

 



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VCIX-DCV 2020|CKA|VCP|VCP vSphere 7|MCTS|RHCA|CCNA|ITIL| Master Specialist - VMware Cloud on AWS 2021
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Mattffolliott
Contributor
Contributor

Hi, thanks for your quick response. 

One thing I'm not sure about is that VC6.0 is currently running on a Windows server VM on the old v6.0 ESXi hosts which are DL480 G7 so do not meet the hardware requirements for 6.7. So I can't upgrade on the old hosts first, then migrate the VMs to the new hosts.  

So to get it right in my head, are you saying install the new Gen10 ESXi hosts with ESXi 6.7 and vCenter 6.7, then migrate the v6.0 VMs from the old v6.0 ESXi hosts? Once this has been completed, upgrade v6.7 to 7.0 on the new hosts?

Thanks,

Matt

 

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virtsysadmin
Enthusiast
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in that case yes, The thing you have to be careful is that "can My VC manage the ESXi host of this version" so you can migrate the VC to 6.7 and add a 6.7 Host while managing the 6.0 Hosts, migrate VMs to to 6.7 Host and then go to 7.0 and left the 6.0 Hosts behind. 



I am a VMware employee, But I contribute to VMTN voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VCIX-DCV 2020|CKA|VCP|VCP vSphere 7|MCTS|RHCA|CCNA|ITIL| Master Specialist - VMware Cloud on AWS 2021
Please hit resolved, when your question has been answered.
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Mattffolliott
Contributor
Contributor

OK, thanks. Another question:

If I have vCenter 6.7 running on the new ESXi hosts, can I keep running vCenter 6.0 on the old hosts simultaneously and then migrate the VMs over from the old cluster to the new cluster?

The problem I have is that I can't upgrade ESXi from 6.0 to 6.7 on the old hosts because of hardware compatibility, and I can't migrate vCenter 6.0 from the old hosts to the new hosts because they are not hardware compatible(?)

Thanks,

Matt

 

 

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Alex_Romeo
Leadership
Leadership

Hi,

Yes you can.

For the migration you can also use the Veeam "Quick Migration" function, you have to dock the two vCenter and migrate the virtual machines from the source to the destination.

regards,

Alex_Romeo

Blog: https://www.aleadmin.it/
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virtsysadmin
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

if you can just upgrade to 6.5 and by creating a fresh 7.0 VC and ESXI ,  you can use advanced cross VC vmotion -  https://core.vmware.com/resource/introducing-advanced-cross-vcenter-server-vmotion-capability#sectio...



I am a VMware employee, But I contribute to VMTN voluntarily (ie. not in any official capacity)
VCIX-DCV 2020|CKA|VCP|VCP vSphere 7|MCTS|RHCA|CCNA|ITIL| Master Specialist - VMware Cloud on AWS 2021
Please hit resolved, when your question has been answered.
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tanjilislam
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

How many VMs are running on this? Can you arrange downtime for them?

Is it necessary to perform online migration?


-Tanjil Islam
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