Hello Gang,
I'm implementing a new ESXi infrastructure at work, and I'm running into a little bit of a quandary with migrating VMs between different environments. I'll give you an overview of the environment to make this question easier to follow.
Current Infrastructure:
- 3 ESXi 5.1 hosts in a cluster, managed by a vCenter Server running 5.5 with vSphere Essentials License. (Dell R710s)
-Dell MD3600i SAN
-iSCSI Switches are Dell Force10
-Core Switch(s) are 3750Xs in a Stack
New Infrastructure:
-3x ESXi 6.5 Hosts in a Cluster, Managed by a vCenter Server also running 6.5 with vSphere Essentials License (Cisco UCS C220 M5s)
-Netapp FAS2650 SAN
-Pair of Nexus 3524Xs for backbone and iSCSI
-10GB thoughout and up-linked to 3750X Stack
The question to you VMWare folks is, what is the best approach to migrating VMs from the 5.1 environment to the 6.5 environment? I'd like to have minimal downtime if possible and avoid cold migrations. Here are some scenarios I have found around the Internet and on other forums.
#1 Have 2 vCenter Servers running at 6.5, upgrade 5.1 hosts to 6.5 and use the VMWare "Connector" to migrate between both environments
#2. Get a trial key for ESXi 6.5, remove 1 old host and introduce a new host and migrate VMs. Repeat for other 2 hosts.
#3 Use Veeam To Replicate VMs to the new infrastructure.
I'm implementing a new ESXi infrastructure at work, and I'm running into a little bit of a quandary with migrating VMs between different environments. I'll give you an overview of the environment to make this question easier to follow.
Current Infrastructure:
- 3 ESXi 5.1 hosts in a cluster, managed by a vCenter Server running 5.5 with vSphere Essentials License. (Dell R710s)
-Dell MD3600i SAN
-iSCSI Switches are Dell Force10
-Core Switch(s) are 3750Xs in a Stack
New Infrastructure:
-3x ESXi 6.5 Hosts in a Cluster, Managed by a vCenter Server also running 6.5 with vSphere Essentials License (Cisco UCS C220 M5s)
-Netapp FAS2650 SAN
-Pair of Nexus 3524Xs for backbone and iSCSI
-10GB thoughout and up-linked to 3750X Stack
The question to you VMWare folks is, what is the best approach to migrating VMs from the 5.1 environment to the 6.5 environment? I'd like to have minimal downtime if possible and avoid cold migrations. Here are some scenarios I have found around the Internet and on other forums.
#1 Have 2 vCenter Servers running at 6.5, upgrade 5.1 hosts to 6.5 and use the VMWare "Connector" to migrate between both environments
#2. Get a trial key for ESXi 6.5, remove 1 old host and introduce a new host and migrate VMs. Repeat for other 2 hosts.
#3 Use Veeam To Replicate VMs to the new infrastructure.