The vCenter Server migration wizard prompts you for the deployment and migration information when migrating a vCenter Server instance, a vCenter Single Sign-On instance, or a Platform Services Controller instance from Windows to an appliance. It is a best practice to keep a record of the values that you entered in case you must power off the appliance and restore the source installation.

You can use this worksheet to record the information that you need for migrating a vCenter Server instance with an vCenter Single Sign-On or Platform Services Controller from Windows to an appliance.

Important: The user name that you use to log in to the machine from which you want run the GUI installer, the path to the vCenter Server Appliance installer, and your values including the passwords, must contain only ASCII characters. Extended ASCII and non-ASCII characters are unsupported.

Local OS users existing on source windows machine are not migrated to the target vCenter Server Appliance and must be recreated after migration is complete. If any local OS user names are used to log in to the vCenter Single Sign-On, you must recreate them and reassign permissions in the Platform Services Controller appliance.

If the source vCenter Server machine is joined to an Active Directory domain, the account you use must have permissions to rejoin the machine to the domain. For more information, see http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2146454.
Table 1. Information Required for Migrating vCenter Server from Windows to vCenter Server Appliance
Required Information Default Value Your Entry
Required source vCenter Server migration data vCenter Server IP address or FQDN
vCenter Single Sign-On administrator user name [email protected]
Important: The user must be administrator@ your_domain_name.
Password of the vCenter Single Sign-On administrator
Migration Assistant port number
vCenter Server version
Temporary upgrade files path %LOCALAPPDATA%\VMware\Migration-Assistant\export
IP address or FQDN of the source ESXi host on which the source vCenter Server resides
Source ESXi host user name with administrative rights on the source ESXi host
Source ESXi host password
Migrate performance & other historical data Disabled by default
Migration Assistant thumbprint
Active Directory administrator credentials
Service account credentials, if vCenter Server is running under a customer user account
Required target vCenter Server Appliance data IP address or FQDN of the target ESXi host or vCenter Server instance where you deploy the new vCenter Server Appliance to which you migrate the source vCenter Server
User name with administrative privileges for the target ESXi host. or vCenter Server instance, data center or data center folder, and resource pool of an ESXi host or DRS cluster to which to migrate the source installation
Password for the target ESXi host. or vCenter Server instance, data center or data center folder, and resource pool of an ESXi host or DRS cluster
vCenter Single Sign-On username
vCenter Single Sign-On password
Target vCenter Server Appliance name
Password of the root user
vCenter Server Appliance size.

The options vary depending on the size of your vSphere environment.

  • Tiny (up to 10 hosts, 100 virtual machines)
  • Small (up to 100 hosts, 1,000 virtual machines)
  • Medium (up to 400 hosts, 4,000 virtual machines)
  • Large (up to 1,000 hosts, 10,000 virtual machines)
  • X-Large (up to 2,000 hosts, 35,000 virtual machines)
Tiny (up to 10 hosts, 100 virtual machines)
Name of the datastore on which the new version of the vCenter Server Appliance is deployed
Enable or disable thin disk mode. Disabled by default
Join or do not participate in the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP).

For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management.

Join the CEIP
Temporary network for communication between the source vCenter Server and the target vCenter Server Appliance IP address version IPv4
IP address allocation method DHCP
Static assignment settings Network address
Subnet mask
Network gateway
Network DNS servers, separated with commas
Enable or disable SSH Disabled by default