Depending on your circumstances, you can migrate to vRealize Automation 8 using the Migration Assistant or by using the onboarding feature.

Migrating to vRealize Automation 8 using the Migration Assistant

For most cicumstances, the Migration Assistant provides ample support for migrating from vRealize Automation 7.x to vRealize Automation 8. However, for some customers migration using onboarding is recommended. For onboarding use cases see Migrating to vRealize Automation using the onboarding feature in the section below. Migrating using the Migration Assistant is recommended for:
  • Networking
    • The migration assistant has advanced capabilities for identifying deployment constructs, specifically for networking. The migration assistant supports the migration of: all network objects in all clouds, IP management with native IPAM, load balancers, and security groups. Onboarding does not support this functionality.
  • VCT assignment to workloads
    • The migration assistant can assign the blueprints to the workloads being migrated. The workloads are compatible with the VCT in vRA 8. Onboarding does not support this functionality.
  • Custom properties and property groups (limited) are automatically recognized
    • The migration assistant automatically recognizes any custom properties or property groups used in blueprints and workloads and applies them to the workloads in vRA 8 to maintain the functionality and expected behavior of the custom properties.
  • Capabilities of migration assistant that are not present in onboarding
    • The Migration Assistant includes many capabilities that onboarding does not. For example, support for migrating deployment history, retaining deployment metadata (such as names, descriptions, lease expirations, and ownership), migrating custom resources, migrating custom forms, lease policy compatibility, retaining the vRA 7.x consumption model, etc.
  • Cloudzone mapping and compatibility with limits
    • When workloads are migrated using the Migration Assistant they are automatically placed in the right cloudzone. They are also compliant with the limits specified as the project-cloudzone assignment.
  • Scale out support
    • In vRA 8, there are no day 2 actions for scale out of machines. To overcome this, vRA uses interative deployments where the VCT parameters are changed and then re-applied to the provisioned deployment to scale it out. Onboarding does not suppor this functionality.

Migrating to vRealize Automation using the onboarding feature

As an alternative to using the Migration Assistant, you can use the onboarding feature to migrate certain vRealize Automation 7.x workloads to 8.x. Migration using Onboarding is limited to machine and connected objects (disks and networks) only. Onboarding also allows you onboard one or many machines to Cloud Assembly using a single onboarding plan. Migrating using the onboarding feature is recommended for:
  • Side by side VCF migration
    • Onboarding is recommended, if you want to migrate VCF 3.x to 4.x alongside migrating vRealize Automation 7.x to 8.x. To migrate, set up a separate VCF 4 stack and migrate workloads with HCX. After, you can onboard these workloads to the new vRealize Automation 8 instance that is deployed in the VCF 4 stack.
  • vRealize Automation changes in deployment structure
    • Onboarding is recommended if you want to change how vRealize Automation is consumed in 8.x compared to 7.x. For example, if you want to consolidate business groups into fewer projects, reconstruct blueprints, ignore any non-relevant content present in 7.x, update existing processes to new methods, etc.
  • Make changes to deployments such as update name or add custom properties
    Note: Workload onboarding does not connect to vRealize Automation 7.x and does not have access to vRA 7 constructs and metadata such as blueprints and custom properties. It only operates on inventory discovered by vRA 8.
    • Onboarding is recommended if you want to make changes to your deployment metadata such as renaming it or adding additional custom properties.
  • Require changes in production vRealize Automation 7.x
    • Onboarding is recommended if you do not want to make any changes to your 7.x environment in production to address incompatibilities reported by the migration assistant. For example, if you are unable to unpublish content you no longer use, if you make changes in blueprints, update vRO workflows, update entitlements, update custom day 2 actions, etc.
  • Migrate from vRealize Automation 7.x to vRealize Automation Cloud
    • Onboarding is recommended if you want to migrate your vRA 7.x on-prem environment to vRA Cloud. Currently, the Migration Assistant does not support this migration path use case.

For more information on onboarding, see What are onboarding plans.