Greetings all.
I am trying to move a vCenter Appliance to a physical server. It is a small setup with only 3 hosts. I am somewhat new to VMware. If I have to set up single sign-on again and add the hosts again, that is not a problem. I do not have any clusters set up yet, it's a new installation. Actually there is a cluster but neither DRS nor HA is turned on. I want to remove the cluster but not the hosts. We have a small Windows 2008 R2 AD domain. The vCenter Server is a member of the domain, as are the ESXi hosts. It is version 5.5.
Is it OK if I simply remove the vCenter appliance by shutting it down and removing it from disk and inventory, and then install the physical server and add the hosts to it, delete the appliance server from AD and add the new physical server to AD, and set up SSO again on the new server - will that work? Will I run into any issues/problems?
I should note that the reason behind my doing this is to implement vSA on the 3 hosts, and according to what I have read, I cannot run the vCenter appliance on a VSA host, and all 3 hosts must be VSA hosts if each one is to share its storage with the other 2. I also read that I cannot add any VMs to the hosts until the VSA cluster has been created. So I need to ditch the current cluster and take the hosts out of it. Only one host is still underneath the existing cluster. So I am hoping that by performing those steps above that I can add my hosts to the new vCenter physical server once it's up and running, and just delete the old one. If that is not the way to go about this, please point me in the right direction and you will be worth your weight in gold as far as I am concerned.
Thanks very much in advance,
Sam
Just a quick note about the VSA. You may want to read New Features of the vSphere Storage Appliance version 5.1, which explains added features including a brownfield setup.
André
Welcome to the Community - Are you looking to move the vCenter Appliance from a VM to a physical machine or to move to a windows based vCenter running on a physical machine?
So if i understand correctly the new physical management server will be running windows with all vCenter components (SSO, inventory service, DB etc) running on one physical server with the x3 ESXi hosts running the workload VMs?
If that's the case then yes but there's no need to rush to delete the vCenter Appliance. just power it off in the first instance, build your new physical vCenter, add the hosts back into the New VC (you'll get certificate errors but just continue through them).
Once you're back up and running then delete the vCSA.
Consider that you can't move the vCSA DB to the new Windows based vCenter so you will loose your performance data history, you'll need to re-enter your product keys and if you're using certificates from an external CA you'll need to configure those again also.
Also if you're using the VDS virtual switch you will loose that configuration also (unless you back it up separately) and any VMs running on that switch may loose connectivity. If you're using standard switches on your hosts then no problem as they are only local to the hosts and do not require vCenter.
But you won't loose any production VMs running on your hosts or even disrupt them.
Moving vCenter from a virtual machine (using the virtual appliance) to a physical Windows vCenter Server. Thanks!
Thanks! Yes, I do not think I am using a VDS virtual switch. And you're correct, the ESXi hosts will host the VMs and the vCenter server will only be used for the vCenter components. Thanks again!
Then you shouldn't have a problem. The VDS is only available on enterprise plus licensing and you'd probably know if you were using it.
Just a quick note about the VSA. You may want to read New Features of the vSphere Storage Appliance version 5.1, which explains added features including a brownfield setup.
André
I wish there was a "What's new in VSA 5.5". Maybe there isn't anything new since 5.1 (in VSA 5.5). I just read where they're discontinuing it.:smileyshocked:
I will check out the "new in 5.1" document for sure. Thanks again everyone for all the helpful comments! I really like VMware and this forum is excellent! :smileycool:
Nice! Looks like I can keep my vCenter appliance after all! The newer versions of VSA will allow me to keep it and allocate less shared storage initially and then move the vCenter VA into shared storage later. Very cool!
Yes that's true.
VMware has announced the End of Availability of all vSphere Storage Appliance product versions, effective as of April 1, 2014. After this date, customers will no longer be able to purchase these products. All support and maintenance for vSphere Storage Appliance will be unaffected and will continue as per the VMware Life Cycle policy. Refer to the VSA FAQ for more information. vSAN is the way forward for Software Defined Storage and there is an upgrade SKU available to move from the VSA to vSAN.
Please refer to the Lifecycle product matrix https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/support/Product-Lifecycle-Matrix.pdf for the end of support dates.
