Hello Experts,
We have purchased a new Network Storage for our department. We are now in the process of migrating the data from Old to new. This includes migration of Datastores to another Storage(Netapp).
Ofcourse we have running VMs in these Datastores. That is the internal disk of VMs reside in these datastores. The datastores are connected to VM-Hosts via NFS.
The name of the remote datastore is Netapp and Netapp1. And internal Datastore is datastore1. Netapp-Datastore's size is 3.25 TB.
And total no. of VMs are around 20. We have NFS connectivity to this storage from VM-Hosts. This can be seen in the attachment.
One the new storage is available over network, we should be starting the process of data migration. Once data migration from one storage to another is complete, we should migrate the VMs.
We would like to know if the following plan will work or needs modifications. (We have a free copy of VSphere 5.5. No Vcenter or any other license. We aint lucky enough to purchase them
)
1. Migrate (copy) the data from 1 storage to another. This includes the datastores as well.
2. Once the data migration is complete, then we bring down all the clients as well as VMs and their respective VM-Hosts. Before bringing down the VM-Hosts, we will have to add the new Datastores under Storage using VSphere. Question1: Should the existing storages be deleted at this stage? We think yes, because we have to add the new datastores with exact same name as the old datastores. In this case Netapp and Netapp1. Only then the VMs will be able to start. As for a particular VM, the VM-Disk is accessed via Datastore name. E.g. In the second attachment, we can see the VM-Properties show, the internal disk is represented as [Netapp]<Name of the host>/Name of the Folder. So we delete the 2 Datastores entries and add them again with new IPAdress but the same old Name Netapp and Netapp1.
3. Bring down the ESXi Hosts.
4. Re-start the Hosts. This will now include only the new Datastores. Make sure that these are now accessible.
5. Start the VMs Question2: Will these start without any adjustment or modifications? Or we should be doing something extra for it to work? Will VM detect that the hosts are now accessible from the datastores running on a new Storage?
Though we are using a free version of VSphere, if the above method does have limitations or is absolutely not possible then we will certainly ask management to consider buying VMWare licenses.
Kindly share your expert comments or any modifications. Your comments will be highly appreciated.
Thanx in advance.
We have purchased a new Network Storage for our department. We are now in the process of migrating the data from Old to new. This includes migration of Datastores to another Storage(Netapp).
Ofcourse we have running VMs in these Datastores. That is the internal disk of VMs reside in these datastores. The datastores are connected to VM-Hosts via NFS.
The name of the remote datastore is Netapp and Netapp1. And internal Datastore is datastore1. Netapp-Datastore's size is 3.25 TB.
And total no. of VMs are around 20. We have NFS connectivity to this storage from VM-Hosts. This can be seen in the attachment.
One the new storage is available over network, we should be starting the process of data migration. Once data migration from one storage to another is complete, we should migrate the VMs.
We would like to know if the following plan will work or needs modifications. (We have a free copy of VSphere 5.5. No Vcenter or any other license. We aint lucky enough to purchase them
1. Migrate (copy) the data from 1 storage to another. This includes the datastores as well.
2. Once the data migration is complete, then we bring down all the clients as well as VMs and their respective VM-Hosts. Before bringing down the VM-Hosts, we will have to add the new Datastores under Storage using VSphere. Question1: Should the existing storages be deleted at this stage? We think yes, because we have to add the new datastores with exact same name as the old datastores. In this case Netapp and Netapp1. Only then the VMs will be able to start. As for a particular VM, the VM-Disk is accessed via Datastore name. E.g. In the second attachment, we can see the VM-Properties show, the internal disk is represented as [Netapp]<Name of the host>/Name of the Folder. So we delete the 2 Datastores entries and add them again with new IPAdress but the same old Name Netapp and Netapp1.
3. Bring down the ESXi Hosts.
4. Re-start the Hosts. This will now include only the new Datastores. Make sure that these are now accessible.
5. Start the VMs Question2: Will these start without any adjustment or modifications? Or we should be doing something extra for it to work? Will VM detect that the hosts are now accessible from the datastores running on a new Storage?
Though we are using a free version of VSphere, if the above method does have limitations or is absolutely not possible then we will certainly ask management to consider buying VMWare licenses.
Kindly share your expert comments or any modifications. Your comments will be highly appreciated.
Thanx in advance.