When the OVA deployment completes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the migration process to transfer data from the source vCenter Single Sign-On or Platform Services Controller on Windows to the target appliance and start the services.

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. Review the VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) page and choose if you want to join the program.
    For information about the CEIP, see the Configuring Customer Experience Improvement Program section in vCenter Server and Host Management.
  6. On the Ready to complete page, review the settings for the Platform Services Controller appliance, accept the backup acknowledgement, and click Finish.
  7. Click OK to confirm the shutdown of the source vCenter Single Sign-On or Platform Services Controller and initialize the target appliance.
  8. Wait for the data transfer and setup process to complete and click OK to go to the Platform Services Controller Getting Started page.

Results

The source vCenter Single Sign-On instance or Platform Services Controller instance is migrated from Windows to a target appliance. The source vCenter Single Sign-On instance or Platform Services Controller instance is powered off and the new target appliance starts.

What to do next

Verify that your Platform Services Controller instance has migrated successfully. For verification steps, see Verify Your vCenter Server Appliance Upgrade or Migration Is Successful.

For the new Platform Services Controller appliance to replicate infrastructure data with other Platform Services Controller instances, you must migrate or upgrade all joined Platform Services Controller instances within the vCenter Single Sign-On domain to the same version. For information on upgrading Platform Services Controller instances on Windows, see Upgrade vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 on Windows or Upgrade vCenter Platform Services Controller 6.0 on Windows.

After you migrate or upgrade all joined Platform Services Controller instances, you can migrate or upgrade the vCenter Server instances within the vCenter Single Sign-On domain. For information on migrating vCenter Server instances to appliances, see Deploy the OVA File for the Target vCenter Server Appliance with an External Platform Services Controller. 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.