vCenter Migration Toolkit and Veeam

[sconley]

Now that 9.5 update 1 is out I am starting to look at moving to vSphere 6.5 and vCenter 6.5. I would like to move away from the Windows based vCenter server and migrate to the VCSA. If I use VMware's vCenter Server Migration tool to migrate to the VCSA can I expect to encounter the issues discussed in this KB https://www.veeam.com/kb2136 (namely my backups will stop working and require an active full)? Or can I expect things to "just work" since the migration tool migrates the ID of the old vCenter server to the new one?

[lohelle]

I did this upgrade/migration this weekend.
After the migration to VCSA, I started upgrading some host. It is important that you to a rescan of VC/hosts after the upgrade, as I got backup failures before I did that. After a rescan, everything worked as before.
The first run was not an active full, but it seems that CBT was reset automatically, as first run seemed to read all data from the VMDKs (but only transferred the changes)

[sconley]

Excellent. I can deal with backups taking longer due to CBT being reset, but was not looking forward to the possibility of new active fulls or having to work some database magic to avoid this. I will just make sure to do the upgrade on a weekend (which would be standard anyway) so that the backup window does not interfere with production.

Thanks for the info.

[northeast100]

Gents,

I'm looking for some feedback for individuals that have gone from Windows vCenter 5.5 to the linux appliance 6.5 and used the vCenter Migration tool provided by VMware. Given that all config data is migrated to the new vcenter, did you still need to use the Veeam Migration Tool as well?

Looking for any input possible

Thanks!
-Northeast

[veremin]

Based on the information provided by VMware, usage of Veeam Migration Tool won't be required, as MoRef IDs will stay intact.

The second stage configures the VCSA 6.5 and imports the source Windows vCenter Server data. This includes the identity of the source Windows vCenter server. The vCenter Server identity includes FQDN, IP address, UUID, Certificates, MoRef IDs, etc. As far as other solutions that communicate with vCenter Server nothing has changed.

[AndyGDIT]

Veeam was not necessary for us, we have several vCenters and migrated them all with the built in tool, only ran into a few issues with some of the older ones that were upgraded several times.

[lukejf]

Hi Guys
We are about to migrate from vcenter 5.5 on a windows hosts to 6.5 vcsa. Previous vcenter upgrades have required using the veeam tool to match MoRef for the virtual machines in veeam . I read on the veeam tool KB the vcenter migration tool should now copy the MoRef so this is no longer an issue.
Can someone please confirm that is the case, as the article it points to is version 6.0 not 6.5. Also if this is the case, is it using the migration tool on the vcsa iso?

Cheers in advance.

[foggy]

Hi Luke, please see above, you should be fine with vsca 6.5.

[lukejf]

Awesome, thanks Foggy

[uhoh]

Hello everyone,

First time posting here so I offer a newbies apology in advance if I deviate from proper forum etiquette/decorum.

The situation: We plan to upgrade our vcenter to VCSA using the VMware Migration Tool which will import the old vcenter's db and configuration, the MO Ref ID's and use the vcenter's IP. Reading on this forum, the Veeam migration utility shouldn't be needed.

However I have been told by support that I probably will have to add the VCSA within Veeam even though the old and new IP's etc. (identities) are the same.
Obviously I want to make sure this goes smoothly because I have recently exerted a lot of time and effort seeding VM's at our new DR and and the thought of having to redo all of this from scratch makes me groan and feel really gloomy.

Game plan:

1) Perform the upgrade. During the migration the old vcenter will powered off by the Vmware utility
2) Verify Moref ID's are the same on VM's per VMware KB (assuming they will be the same, and the Veeam MO Ref Tool will not be needed)
2) Within Veeam rescan/refresh of the IP object that 'should' point to the vcsa then run a backup and replication of a single test VM to see what happens.
Best case = veeam recognizes the vcsa ( don't need to add) and the backups and replication job use existing chains and CBT is functional.
3) If errors > reboot Veeam server and retry

If still errors couple of options:
1) Veeam suport said to add the VCSA and as remove and re-add each VM for each job and to rempa source to target replicas - I will then need to remove the old vcenter which is powered off. I have no idea if this will throw errors - it just seems messy and a little dicey not to mention I don't know the proper veeam reconfigure sequence to follow. add first then remove etcetera...

2) Change nothing and failback by powering off the vcsa powering on the old vcenter and regroup. We have discussed potentially doing an in-place up grade on the 2008 R2 vcenter and plan a vcsa migration at a later date.

Group Questions:

1)Will I have to actually delete and re- add the VCSA ( using the same ip address) and then re-add VM's within each job? And If so, what is the best procedure to follow to ensure success?
2)replication steps - will I need to actually re-add and/or remap replicas?
3)Does anyone have reconfiguration documentation regarding this? I have looked for Veeam documentaion (no luck) so if you have been through this please share w/me what worked, and any gotchas....PLEASE help me be successful - we are forging ahead the day after (gulp) tomorrow.

Thanks in advance for your comments!

[DGrinev]

Hi and welcome to the community!

Is there a reason why do you want to stay with 6.0.m2 instead of latest 6.5 Update 1?
I'd recommend you to check existing discussion as it might contain the answers you're looking for. Thanks!

[uhoh]

Thanks Dgrinev.

Our project technical lead made the call but primarily it's because we have more combined expertise using the fat client and the feature set meets our needs.

I reviewed the link you included but I didn't see much as far as Veeam reconfiguration post VMWare migration/upgrade. The content is mostly geared toward the VMware migration itself - not Veeam reconfiguration. Still hoping there are Veeam admins who have upgraded and will share what they had to do on the Veeam side to ensure backup and replication worked properly after the upgrading and switching from a Windows VM to the VCSA.

[DGrinev]

Hey,

Just came back from the Game plan discussion with the QA team.
They said migration should be smooth and clean without additional reconfiguration, since the VCSA will be available with the same address and all those improvements made by VMware for the migration process.
The major hint is to backup vCenter before the upgrade and initiate rescan right after it will be finished just in case. Thanks!

[uhoh]

Many thanks!

[uhoh]

During a pre-migration check it was discovered there is veeam plug-in that needs to be removed to upgrade
Warning: This vCenter Server has extensions registered that cannot be upgraded to or may not work with the new vCenter Server.
Extensions:
com.veeam.backupui.VeeamBackupUi on https://Veeam1.ccfmaster.ccfusa.org:944 ... plugin.zip

Looks like I can uninstall it from within Enteprise Manager and I found a thread that it can be reinstalled and used with the VCSA.

My question: Will uninstalling this have any impact on my backups or replication after we migrate to the VCSA ? Unlike the MO ref ID issue, from what I can tell it's primarily used for reporting purposes, I think its non-essential but am being cautious and therefore posing the question to the group.

[DGrinev]

Hi,

Looks like I can uninstall it from within Enteprise Manager and I found a thread that it can be reinstalled and used with the VCSA.

That's correct.
You can uninstall the plugin without any impact on the infrastructure or backups\replicas.
It allows you to monitor job sessions and initiate QuickBackup or VeeamZip within vCenter UI. Thanks!

[btmaus]

We are migrating from vSphere 5.5 to vSphere 6.5. For various reasons, we have built a new and separate vCenter from the old 5.5 vCenter. We are migrating via S-vMotion to a LUN on the new cluster, then de-registering on the old vCenter, and re-registerign on the new vCenter.

So my question is, when it comes to the virtual machines that are protected by Veeam, how do I keep my existing backup chain place without breaking it?

[veremin]

You should use vCenter Migration utility mentioned on the first page. Thanks.

[btmaus]

We are doing a clean setup, and therefore no migration of data from old vCenter (5.5) to new vCenter (6.5). How would I preserve my backup chains in Veeam?

[DGrinev]

Hi Glenn,

In order to preserve backup chains you should preserve the database of the previously used vCenter, since all VMs MorefIDs in there.
Otherwise, you can't continue the old backup chains because all the VMs in the newly deployed vCenter will be recognized as new that were never seen before. Thanks!

[luix73]

HI all,
I need to know if exist a procedure to migrate some Vsphere nodes from a Virtual center to another one in order avoiding to start VMs backup from scartch and to keep previous backup chain.

I need to migrate from a Vcenter 6.5 to a VCSA 6.5


Thanks
Luix

[Pat490]

you need to take a look at the vc migration utility... https://www.veeam.com/kb2136

[DGrinev]

Hi Luigi and welcome to the community!

Please review this existing discussion as it contains a plenty of useful information about the migration. Thanks!

[mbongenid]

Good day,

My backup is nolonger backing up my VMs, I had a problem with vCenter server and had to rebuild it, from there it stopped backing up my servers, how do I recreate new references such that the Veeam solution can identify the new vCenter server and therefore update the vms in it, I think it still has a memory of the old vCenter. this is the error I'm getting: Task failed Error: Object with reference 'vm-703' was not found in hierarchy cache

[DGrinev]

Hi Mbongeni and welcome to the community!

You might find useful VC migration utility tool, that has been mentioned in the posts above, also review this thread for additional information. Thanks!

[uhoh]

Hello everyone,
Our mIgration is now complete and we were successful!

We migrated and upgraded yesterday. In the end, the decision was made to go with 6.5 rather than 6.0 as the migration tool has been improved upon.
Details that may help others:

Our main roadblock was that the pre-migration check kept failing.
To resolve this we had to:
1) Uninstall the Veeam Enterprise Manager Plugin for VMWare
2) Because our vcenter SQL database had been internal then was externalized we had to work through:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2113819 ( basically add a backslash)
Migration completed in just over an hour.
Post Migration Check and testing:
First we confirmed our MORefIDs were unchanged in the VCSA (we documented them beforehand)
Next, I ran a test backup and replication job that I had baselined the day before so that I could confirm post migration that CBT and the metadata repositories were still working properly.
Both jobs initially failed and simply rescanning our VCSA didn't help.

I found the fix on this forum, though not in a vcenter to VCSA migration context.
https://forums.veeam.com/vmware-vsphere ... 27975.html
Basically, because our self signed cert was considered insecure (not CA issued), so we had to explicitly allow veeam to connect to the VCSA

The only other change needed, was to create a backup job fro the the VCSA per https://www.veeam.com/kb2328

DONE and thanks for the feedback!

[DGrinev]

Thank you very much for sharing, that should be useful for further readers!
I'm glad your migration was successful despite the issues you have faced.

[enricop]

Hi,
I'm going to replace a single ESXi 5.1 host and vCenter 5.5 to a two hosts ESXi 6.5 and vCenter 6.5.

vCenter is installed on separate physical server, so I need to uninstall vCenter 5.5 and install vCenter 6.5.

My Veeam B&R is configured "pointing" to vCenter (5.5), is it possible to remove vCenter from Veeam B&R, and replace it with direct connection to the same ESXi host (that was "under" vCenter 5.5) and preserve all my Backup jobs, virtual LABS, SuereBackup jobs and, most importantly, my backup file chains?

Thank you in advance for your help.
Enrico

[veremin]

You should use vCenter Migration utility mentioned in this thread. Thanks.

[Tomsyr]

Hi - If we use the VMWare migration utility, does it always map the correct MorefIDs that Veeam was using?
How do I go about documenting the MorefIDs that Veeam is using to make sure it matches the VMWare pre and post migration? What if it doesn't match? Can be be modified to reflect the upgraded VCenter?