If you have deployed or installed a vCenter Server instance with an external Platform Services Controller, you can convert it to a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services Controller using the converge utility.

This convergence is performed using the vcsa-util command-line utility. You can locate the vcsa-util utility in the vcsa-converge-cli directory:
  • Linux 64-bit: lin64/vcsa-util
  • MasOS X: mac/vcsa-util
  • Windows: win32/vcsa-util.exe

The convergence utility can only be run within one domain. It cannot be run between multiple domains.

Note: The vcsa-util command can be run from a system running on a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS operating system. You must have administrator privileges on the system that you are running the converge utility. Reconfiguring a vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller to a Platform Services Controller with an embedded Platform Services Controller is only supported for a vCenter Server Appliance running the same version on each node. It is not supported for a vCenter Server installed on Windows.

After you converge a vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller, you must refresh the certificates for the ESXi hosts in your environment. Failing to do this results in connection errors when other products attempt to connect to vCenter Server. To learn more, see "Renew or Refresh ESXi Certificates" in the vSphere Security documentation.

Prerequisites

Download and mount the vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 Update 2 ISO. See Download and Mount the vCenter Server Appliance Installer for instructions.

Create backups of the vCenter Server and external Platform Services Controller instance so that you can restore them if the reconfiguration fails.

Disable and remove vCenter HA before starting the process. Converging with vCenter HA configurations is not supported. Remove any vCenter HA configurations before starting the converge process. After a successful convergence, you can enable vCenter HA configurations in the embedded node.

Procedure

  1. Edit the converge.json and decommission_psc.json templates to include information about the managing ESXi host or vCenter Server and the vCenter Server Appliance. See Preparing JSON Configuration Files for Reconfiguring External to Embedded Nodes for information on preparing the converge.json template.
    If you are running a DRS configuration, enter only the vCenter Server, not the ESXi host in the JSON file.
  2. Run the converge command in pre-check mode. Pre-check does not perform a converge but verifies the JSON file and checks for any conflicts. Enter vcsa-util converge --precheck-only converge.json to run the converge command in pre-check mode.
  3. Begin the convergence process by running the vcsa-util converge converge.json command on the client machine running on a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS operating system. This operation installs and configures the new embedded Platform Services Controller. See Syntax of the Converge Command for a list of available arguments for the vsca-util converge command.
    1. Enter yes or no if you backed up the Platform Services Controller and vCenter Server.
    2. The command provides a thumb print of the certificate and asks you to accept. Enter 1 to accept and continue.
    After the utility successfully finishes, you can log into the vCenter Server Appliance appliance management interface ( https://appliance-IP-address-or-FQDN:5480) and see that it is now a vCenter Server with embedded Platform Services Controller.
  4. (Optional) Reconfigure any products deployed into the environment that uses the external Platform Services Controller to use the newly deployed embedded Platform Services Controller.
  5. Decommission the original Platform Services Controller by running the vcsa-util decommission decomission.json command. This operation removes the external Platform Services Controller from the SSO domain.
    The vcsa-util decommission utility uses the cmsso-util utility to decommission the Platform Services Controller. If you decommission the Platform Services Controller with cmsso-util, you must first manually shut down the Platform Services Controller and then unregister also with cmsso-util. See the VMware Knowledge Base article https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2106736 for instructions on directly using the cmsso-util command.
    Note: If you shut down the Platform Services Controller before decommissioning or do not manually decommission it using cmsso-util, security and replication problems might occur.

What to do next

Refresh the certificates for the ESXi hosts in your environment. See "Renew or Refresh ESXi Certificates" in the vSphere Security documentation.