You can use the GUI to migrate vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Server appliance.
Before migrating a vCenter Server deployment with an external Platform Services Controller, you must first converge the external Platform Services Controller to an embedded Platform Services Controller and then perform the migration. See Knowledge Base article KB 68137.
If you use Update Manager in the vCenter Server deployment on Windows that you migrate, and Update Manager runs on a separate machine from any other of the vCenter Server components, take an extra step to migrate Update Manager to an appliance.
- If your vCenter Server deployment on Windows uses an external Update Manager, run Migration Assistant on the Update Manager machine to start the migration of the Update Manager server and database to the Update Manager appliance.
- Migrate the vCenter Server instance from Windows to a vCenter Server appliance.
- Verify the newly migrated vCenter Server appliance.
- Decommision the Platform Services Controller.
GUI tasks for migrating an external Platform Services Controller instance from Windows to an appliance.
- Download and Mount the vCenter Server Installer ISO file on a network virtual machine or physical server from which you want to perform the migration.
- Download and Run VMware Migration Assistant on the Source Windows Machine.
Note: If you are migrating a vCenter Server system that uses an external instance of Update Manager that runs on a separate Windows machine, first run Migration Assistant on the Update Manager machine.
- Assemble the Required Information for Migrating vCenter Server from Windows to an Appliance for each Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server instance.
- Deploy the OVA File for the Target vCenter Server Appliance
- Set Up the Target vCenter Server Appliance
For each node to be migrated, the installer:
- Deploys a new target appliance.
- Exports the required files from the source Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server instance.
- Copies the required files to the target appliance for migration.
- Runs the migration process on the target appliance as indicated in the Summary.
- Imports and updates the files and settings of the source Platform Services Controller or vCenter Server instance to the new vCenter Server appliance.
Deploy the OVA File for the Target vCenter Server Appliance
To start the migration process, you use the GUI installer to deploy the OVA file that is included in the installer ISO file as the target vCenter Server appliance.
Prerequisites
Procedure
Results
The newly deployed target vCenter Server appliance version 8.0 is running on the target server but is not yet configured.
Set Up the Target vCenter Server Appliance
When the OVA deployment finishes, 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.
The period of time during which your system is unavailable does not begin until you start to set up the target appliance. You cannot cancel or interrupt the process until it finishes with the shutdown of the source deployment. The time your system is unavailable ends when the target appliance starts.
Procedure
Results
vCenter Server is migrated from Windows to a newly deployed target vCenter Server appliance. The source vCenter Server is powered off and the target appliance starts.
What to do next
- Verify Your vCenter Server Upgrade or Migration Is Successful.
- Upgrade all vCenter Server instances in the vCenter Single Sign-On domain.
- After converging a vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller node to a vCenter Server appliance, you must decommission the original external Platform Services Controller. Decommissioning a Platform Services Controller shuts it down and removes it from the single sign-on domain. See Decommission the Platform Services Controller.
- For post-migration steps, see After Upgrading or Migrating vCenter Server.
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You can configure high availability for the vCenter Server appliance. For information about providing vCenter Server appliance high availability, see vSphere Availability.