After you have migrated Edge Services Gateway VMs to NSX-T Edge nodes, and verified that routing and services are working correctly, you can migrate your NSX for vSphere hosts to NSX-T host transport nodes.

You can configure several settings related to the host migration, including migration order and enabling hosts. Make sure that you understand the effects of these settings. See Configuring NSX Data Center for vSphere Host Migration for more information. Understanding the host migration settings is especially important if you use Distributed Firewall or vSphere Distributed Switch 7.0.

For more information about what happens during host migration, see Changes Made During Host Migration.

Caution:

Host migration should be completed during the same maintenance window as Edge migration.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that Edge migration has finished and all routing and services are working correctly.
  • Verify that all ESXi hosts are in an operational state. Address any problems with hosts including disconnected states. There must be no pending reboots or pending tasks for entering maintenance mode.

Procedure

  1. Click Start to start the host migration.

    If you selected the In-Place or Automated Maintenance migration mode for all hosts groups, the host migration starts.

  2. If you selected the Manual Maintenance migration mode for any host groups, you must complete one of the following tasks for each VM so that the hosts can enter maintenance mode.
    Option Action
    Power off or suspend VMs.
    1. Right click the VM and select Power > Power off , Power > Shut Down Guest OS, or Power > Suspend.
    2. After the host has migrated, attach the VM interfaces to the appropriate NSX-T segments and power on the VM.
    Move VMs using vMotion.
    1. Right click the VM and select Migrate. Follow the prompts to move the VM to a different host.
    Move VMs using cold migration.
    1. Right click the VM and select Power > Power off , Power > Shut Down Guest OS, or Power > Suspend.
    2. Right click the VM and select Migrate. Follow the prompts to move the VM to a different host, connecting the VM interfaces to the appropriate NSX-T segments.
    The host enters maintenance mode after all VMs are moved, powered off, or suspended. If you want to use cold migration to move the VMs to a different host before the migrating host enters maintenance mode, you must leave at least one VM running while you move VMs. When the last VM is powered off or suspended, the host enters maintenance mode, and migration of the host to NSX-T starts.

Results

After a host has migrated to NSX-T using In-Place migration mode, you might see a critical alarm with message Network connectivity lost. This alarm occurs because the host no longer has a physical NIC connected to the vSphere Distributed Switch it was previously connected to. To restore the migrated hosts to the Connected state, click Reset to Green on each host, and suppress the warnings, if any.

If migration fails for a host, the migration pauses after all in-progress host migrations finish. When you have resolved the problem with the host, click Retry to retry migration of the failed host.

If migration fails for a host, you can move its host group to the bottom of the list of groups. The migration of other host groups can proceed while you resolve the problem with the failed host.