Migrations always fail - 4.1 to 6.0

[MLaf]

We have an old VM cluster running ESXi 4.1 (and a few standalone hosts on 3.5) on an old vCenter Server that we are trying to migrate to our new 6.0 cluster (new vCenter). Out of all solutions I've researched, Veeam B&R is the best and most efficient one however I've been unable to get it to work. I've tried this with a running and a shutdown VM and the migrations always fail with the errors "Copying snapshot files Error: The object has already been deleted or has not been completely created" and "Failed to process VM "vmname" at "date" Error: The object has already been deleted or has not been completely created."

I've also tried this same migration going from other hosts (3.5) and the error is the same. I thought it was an issue with the old vCenter server as I had added it to Veeam so I just added the host directly (to the Infrastructure pane). No changes.

I don't understand why this is even causing errors with a shutdown VM. The benefit of using Veeam was that it could be done with as little downtime as possible using the live migrations but neither solution is working.

Are there any more locations I can get some insight on why this isn't working?

[Mike Resseler]

Marc,

How are you doing your migration? What I can see on different forums is that migration from 4.1 (or 3.5) to 6 does not seem to be working. Most people will tell that you need to migrate from 4.1 to 5.5 and then to 6. In the upgrade guide of VMware you will also see that upgrading to 4.x to 6 is not supported so I assume that migration is also an issue...

I haven't tested it, but I noticed that there are people that suggest to replicate to VM from 4.1 to 6 with Veeam and when done do a planned failover (after confirming that the replication is successful)

Hope it helps

Mike

[foggy]

And just a note that the minimum supported vSphere version is 4.1 (3.5 hosts are not supported).

[MLaf]

Hi Mike,
I'm just trying to to the Quick Migration. I know VMware's path is 4.1 --> 5.5 and then to 6 but I didn't see the same rules applying to Veeam so I thought it would work. When you said I should replicate from 4.1 to 6 and do a planned failover, how exactly should I do that? Use VeeamZIP and then manually copy the file to the new host? (I'm new to Veeam...)

Thanks Foggy. I figured that was the case too.. I could always to a two stage migration (3.5 to 4.1 and then to 6.0 if I can do the above method which Mike suggested.)

If I can't do it this way I can probably stand up a 5.5 interim server just to use for migration purposes... just need to find a server.. (Hmm can you host a 5.5 ESXi host within a 6.0 host?)

[foggy]

When you said I should replicate from 4.1 to 6 and do a planned failover, how exactly should I do that?

With the help of replication jobs.

(Hmm can you host a 5.5 ESXi host within a 6.0 host?)

Nested ESXi is generally possible, not sure whether it could have a different version though.

[MLaf]

Ah so that's why I don't see the Replication option in my application (using the free version). Might have to use that trial now to see if it will actually work! Thanks for the info.

I'll look into nesting older versions of ESXi over on VMware's site. Thanks for the help!