When the OVA deployment completes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the migration process to transfer the data from the source vCenter Server and start the services of the newly deployed target vCenter Server Appliance with an external Platform Services Controller.

Your window of downtime does not begin until you begin to set up the target appliance. You cannot cancel or interrupt the process until it completes with the shutdown of the source deployment. Your window of downtime ends when the target appliance starts.

Procedure

  1. Review the introduction to stage 2 of the migration process and click Next.
  2. On the Select source vCenter Server page, enter the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator password and the root password of the source vCenter Server, enter the password of the user with administrative privileges on the vCenter Server instance, and click Next.
  3. (Optional) Accept the warning message, if any, by clicking Yes.
  4. If your source Windows machine is connected to an Active Directory domain, enter the credentials for an administrator domain user with permission to add the target machine to the Active Directory domain, and click Next.
    Note: The installer verifies the entered credentials, but does not check the required privileges to add the target machine to the Active Directory domain. Verify that the user credentials have all the required permissions to add a machine to the Active Directory domain.
  5. On the Select migration data page, choose the types of data that you want to transfer from the source vCenter Server to the target appliance.
    The large amount of data requires more time to be transferred to the new appliance.
  6. On the ready to complete page, review the migration settings, accept the backup acknowledgment, and click Finish.
  7. Click OK to confirm the shutdown of the source vCenter Server.
  8. Wait for the data transfer and setup process to finish. Click OK to go to the vCenter Server Getting Started page.

Results

The vCenter Server is migrated from Windows to a newly deployed target appliance. The source vCenter Server is powered off and the target appliance starts.

What to do next

Verify that your vCenter Server instances have migrated successfully. For verification steps, see Verify Your vCenter Server Appliance Upgrade or Migration Is Successful.

Complete the migration or upgrade of other vCenter Server instances in the configuration as needed. For information on upgrading vCenter Server instances on Windows, see Upgrade vCenter Server 5.5 on Windows or Upgrade vCenter Server 6.0 on Windows.

For post-migration steps, see After Upgrading or Migrating vCenter Server.