move vCSA 7 to new host

[mgiurgeu]

I'm running a 3-node ESXi cluster with shared storage on an Essentials Plus license. Storage vMotion is not licensed under Essentials Plus.

I need to move vCSA to a different (local) storage.

I tried manually exporting/importing the vm but it complains that can only be run from the host with a particular IP

I tried cloning the VM and re-assigning the same MAC as the original, but it refuses to start due to "invalid MAC"

I am currently trying Veeam Quick Migration but I have a feeling that it will also fail.

Has anyone been able to do this in v7 without svMotion?

[a_p_]

Essentials Plus may not support Storage vMotion, but it supports "Migrate both, compute and storage". So what you can do is to migrate the vCSA to another host, and specify the a datastore in the same step. Once that's done, you may - if you want - vMotion the vCSA back to the original host.

André

[mgiurgeu]

I've seen that recommendation and already tried it before upgrading to 6.7 when vCSA was on the shared storage, but it ended with a 'missing licensing' error for svMotion. Currently, I have vCSA on a local storage (DAS). I managed to move it during the upgrade from 6.7 because I had to do some work on the SAN that required vCSA to be operational. Now I cannot remediate the host that vCSA is on as it cannot enter maintenance with vSCA unable to migrate. I wonder if it would be possible to "upgrade" it again and just move it that way. If that doesn't work, which I don't expect it will, I don't see any other solution short of upgrading to Acceleration Kit, which is ridiculously expensive just to get svMotion. I've already tried Veeam's Quick Migration, but it fails. Very frustrating

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

The 'missing license' is unexpected. Can you confirm that you selected a new location for both, the host, and the datastore?
IIRC this feature has been available since version 5.5U2.

André

[mgiurgeu]

yes, I got it working properly. I had to rebuild vCSA but the migration is now working as it should. Thank you very much for your help