VMware Cloud Community
BattleNerd
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Migrating from vCenter 6.0 w/ External PSC to vCenter 6.5 and new 6.5 External PSC

Hello All!

I'm trying to accomplish the following and having a hard time finding good documentation on the process:

We currently have a vCenter 6.0 implementation, with 1x vCenter Appliance and 1x External PSC Appliance. I would like to be able to try slowly cutting over the environment to a new vCenter 6.5 and External PSC configuration, so that I do not have to lose the configurations i've already setup. The issue I have with doing a upgrade, is the VCSA 6.0 I currently have setup is not stable, has some weird log truncating errors and support has advised to just build a new VCSA. Does anyone have any resources I can use to try migrating our environment with no downtime to vCenter 6.5?

Your help is greatly appreciated, and if for some reason this was easily obtainable i'm sorry up front as I found upgrade guides and migration guides that seemed to be geared more towards in-place upgrades and not migrations of settings to a new Appliance and External PSC Server, thanks!

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
1 Solution

Accepted Solutions
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi BattleNerd ,

From my understanding, upgrading to vCenter 6.5 shouldn't be destructive to your current environment.

A couple of useful links:

vCenter Server Appliance Installer will create new VMs for PSC and vCenter and copy data across from the initial environment. Then it will shut down the old machines.

What I would recommend you to do is:

  1. Backup PSC and vCenter VMs.
  2. Download the latest version of vCenter, which is 6.5 Update 1 - https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?productId=614&rPId=16918&downloadGroup=VC65U1.
  3. Read the release notes for any documented issue - VMware vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 Release Notes .
  4. Rename PSC and vCenter VMs in vSphere Web Client adding _OLD at the end. It will be easier to identify them after the upgrade.
  5. Reboot your PSC and vCenter Server to reset memory usage.
  6. Create snapshots of your current PSC and vCenter (so, if required, you can roll back to the initial setup).
  7. Run vCenter Server Appliance Installer to update PSC (Page 75 in the Upgrade Guide; process will be completed in two stages - first, VM creation, and then PSC configuration). Make sure it completes without errors. After system boots and loads all components properly (I would add it extra 10-15 minutes after reboot to be ready), access it on https://PSC_Name:5480 and https://PSC_Name/psc to check its health.
  8. After the update, verify you are able to log on to the old vCenter using new PSC. Check with the administrator@vsphere.local account that all services on a new PSC are up and running (Home > Administration > System Configuration (in the left pane) > Nodes > PSC_Name > Related Objects (in the right pane)).
  9. Run vCenter Server Appliance Installer to update vCenter Server (Page 79 in the Upgrade Guide; process will be completed in two stages - first, VM creation, and then vCenter configuration). I would recommend migrating only the Configuration (and not Events, Tasks, and Performance Metrics) of the old vCenter to avoid issues with the truncated logs that your environment experiences at the moment.
  10. Complete the same checks as in item 7 for both new PSC and vCenter.

In any case, vCenter Server Appliance Installer has built-in pre-checks that will assist with the health issues. If PSC and vCenter pass those tests, there shouldn't be a problem to succeed with the upgrade.

Good luck and let us know about the results.

Cheers

View solution in original post

Reply
0 Kudos
8 Replies
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi BattleNerd ,

From my understanding, upgrading to vCenter 6.5 shouldn't be destructive to your current environment.

A couple of useful links:

vCenter Server Appliance Installer will create new VMs for PSC and vCenter and copy data across from the initial environment. Then it will shut down the old machines.

What I would recommend you to do is:

  1. Backup PSC and vCenter VMs.
  2. Download the latest version of vCenter, which is 6.5 Update 1 - https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?productId=614&rPId=16918&downloadGroup=VC65U1.
  3. Read the release notes for any documented issue - VMware vCenter Server 6.5 Update 1 Release Notes .
  4. Rename PSC and vCenter VMs in vSphere Web Client adding _OLD at the end. It will be easier to identify them after the upgrade.
  5. Reboot your PSC and vCenter Server to reset memory usage.
  6. Create snapshots of your current PSC and vCenter (so, if required, you can roll back to the initial setup).
  7. Run vCenter Server Appliance Installer to update PSC (Page 75 in the Upgrade Guide; process will be completed in two stages - first, VM creation, and then PSC configuration). Make sure it completes without errors. After system boots and loads all components properly (I would add it extra 10-15 minutes after reboot to be ready), access it on https://PSC_Name:5480 and https://PSC_Name/psc to check its health.
  8. After the update, verify you are able to log on to the old vCenter using new PSC. Check with the administrator@vsphere.local account that all services on a new PSC are up and running (Home > Administration > System Configuration (in the left pane) > Nodes > PSC_Name > Related Objects (in the right pane)).
  9. Run vCenter Server Appliance Installer to update vCenter Server (Page 79 in the Upgrade Guide; process will be completed in two stages - first, VM creation, and then vCenter configuration). I would recommend migrating only the Configuration (and not Events, Tasks, and Performance Metrics) of the old vCenter to avoid issues with the truncated logs that your environment experiences at the moment.
  10. Complete the same checks as in item 7 for both new PSC and vCenter.

In any case, vCenter Server Appliance Installer has built-in pre-checks that will assist with the health issues. If PSC and vCenter pass those tests, there shouldn't be a problem to succeed with the upgrade.

Good luck and let us know about the results.

Cheers

Reply
0 Kudos
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Reply
0 Kudos
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

VMware has just announced the availability of vSphere 6.5 Topology and Upgrade Planning Tool that should help with the migration decisions - Announcing the vSphere 6.5 Topology and Upgrade Planning Tool - VMware vSphere Blog.

Reply
0 Kudos
BattleNerd
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

roman79​, thank you for all the replies and help this was a huge assistance, cheers buddy! I'll be doing my upgrade next week but this will keep my head above the weeds.

Reply
0 Kudos
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Not a problem, BattleNerd​. Just let me know if any questions arrise during the migration phase.

And if you satisfied with my contribution, I appreciate you marking my answer as correct. Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
clsalgueiro
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Hi Roman. The steps for migrating to VCSA 6.5 with embebbed PSC from vCenter 6.0 (windows installation) w/ external PSC are similars?

Thanks!

Reply
0 Kudos
roman79
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
Jump to solution

Hi clsalgueiro​,

Thank you for asking this question.

It sounds a bit tricky, as I believe VMware does not support this type of migration - Overview of Migration from vCenter Server on Windows to an Appliance . At least, I wouldn't be able to find any article or KB for this scenario.

However, I would try the following:

  1. Create a backup of current configuration (PSC 6.0 and vCenter 6.0).
  2. Install a PSC role on the vCenter server - not 100% confident this will work, but worth trying.
  3. Check that both PSCs are healthy and replication is working - VMware Knowledge Base .
  4. Re-point vCenter to the embedded PSC - VMware Knowledge Base .
  5. Remove external PSC from the environment - Remove PSC from SSO Domain – Virtual Reality .
  6. Run the VCSA 6.5 Installer to migrate to vSphere 6.5.

I can check if it works in my home lab and let you know the results during the weekend.

Reply
0 Kudos
clsalgueiro
Contributor
Contributor
Jump to solution

Thanks Roman for your answer, I will try it on my lab at first. But if give me some issues i will let the PSC external, is not mandatory to be embedded.

Reply
0 Kudos