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DougBaer
Commander
Commander

AD Domain Change for vCenter and SRM?

I have a customer in the process of migrating from one AD domain to another. I've been through the process with vCenter and don't really have an issue there. This customer has Site Recovery Manager implemented (4.0) with vSphere 4.0 and I'm curious if anyone out there has experience to share with something like this.

I know that changing the IP address of the vCenter and SRM servers is somewhat painful unless you follow the procedures outlined in the admin guide, so I'm trying to minimize the pain, if possible. I am familiar with page 26 of the SRM admin guide (http://www.vmware.com/pdf/srm_admin_4_1.pdf) ... but it doesn't seem to deal with domain changes specifically.

There's also a KB article here http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1008426

At this point, I'm figuring that I'll 1) have to totally remove and reinstall SRM once I move to the new domain, or 2) simply change the administrative credentials used for authentication.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

Doug Baer, Solution Architect, Advanced Services, Broadcom | VCDX #019, vExpert 2012-23
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mal_michael
Commander
Commander

Only domain is changing or IP addresses as well?

In scenario 1), are you planning to use the DB from the existing setup? Unless you have large setup with plenty of Recovery Plans and Protection Groups I would recommend starting from scratch.

Scenario 2) won't work in my opinion. Have you entered FQDN of the vCenter server or IP addresses during SRM installation and Site Pairing?

BTW, you should use SRM Admin guide matching your version: SRM 4.0 admin guide

Michael.

DougBaer
Commander
Commander

I was hoping to change as little as possible. The database should be the same, as well as the IP addresses and user accounts (aside from the domain portions, of course).

Since this is not really a large implementation and the recovery plans are pretty simple, starting from scratch isn't such a bad option. However, I'm also looking to see how I would do this with a larger implementation in which starting over would be painful.

Thanks for the reminder on the admin guide, too Smiley Happy

Doug Baer, Solution Architect, Advanced Services, Broadcom | VCDX #019, vExpert 2012-23
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DougBaer
Commander
Commander

For future reference, I figured that changing the AD domain membership also changes the DNS name, so it is effectively moving SRM to another machine -- at least from SRM's perspective. So, I will follow this process:

1) Backup SRM database (always!)

2) Backup vmware-dr.xml (just in case)

3) Uninstall SRM -- don't remove the database

4) Move the host into the new domain

5) Reinstall SRM and have it use the existing DSN and database

6) Repeat for the other site's SRM host

Works in the lab...

Doug Baer, Solution Architect, Advanced Services, Broadcom | VCDX #019, vExpert 2012-23
Lukasz_Bielawsk
Contributor
Contributor

Hi,

It is old topic but I have the same case now for some customer.

your plan seems to be ok when vCenter is connected to the same domain like before migration (i think name of connected vCenter is in database)

what in case we have to change domain for two components vCenter and SRM?

First we change domain for vCenter (do you hae action plan for it?)

is it possible to edit connected vCenter in SRM?

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