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denz1217
Contributor
Contributor

Moving/Migrating vCenter

Hi Guys,

I think my concern/question has already been addressed somewhere by someone. Hope you can point me to the solution. Please see details below:

  • We're planning to move and migrate our vCenter Server 4.0 to 4.1.

  • We only have 1 physical machine that's hosting the current vCenter Server and it's on a 32bit OS.

Question(s);

  • What is the best way to go over the moving/migrating?

Proposed Method:

  • Migrating the current vCenter Server (physical) to a Virtual machine using "data migration tool" (http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1021635).

  • Rebuild the physical server with a 64bit OS.

  • Now, can I re-use the "data migration tool" to move back the vCenter from the virtual machine to the newly built physical server?

Cheers.

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mittim12
Immortal
Immortal

I don't see any issues with that path. My only question is why take it back to physical? Mine is currentl physical and I'm thinking about just moving it to virtual. Here is another KB that gives some good information on the migration.

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022137






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denz1217
Contributor
Contributor

@mittim12 Thanks for the quick response. We're also using the vCenter server (physical) as a VCB proxy server and using local disk to stage the snapshots. Moving to a virtual machine will require a huge virtual disk unless I can just used a network share (hhhhmmmm, probably not a bad idea). Anyways, the plan for now is to stick with the physical server. So, just to confirm again, I can be able to use the data migration tool to move back the vCenter 4.1 (virtual machine) to the physical machine,right? Thanks so much.

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pcerda
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Hi,

Theoretically you can use Data Migration Tool to move back the vCenter 4.1 to the physical machine.

Anyway, you always can do this just using a backup of the vCenter Server database, and restore it on the rebuilt server. When you install vCenter Server you have to use the restored database and you will able to restore all the vCenter settings.

Finally, if is possible, maintain your vCenter Server on a Virtual Machine in order to take advantage of VMware availability and protection features.




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Si encuentras que esta o cualquier otra respuesta ha sido de utilidad, vótalas. Gracias.

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