VMware Info_ How to Migrate an ESX 3.5 v4 VM to vSphere v7 VM

8/3/2019 VMware Info_ How to Migrate an ESX 3.5 v4 VM to vSphere v7 VM

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Monday, July 13, 2009

How to migrate an ESX 3.5 v4 VM to vSphere v7 VM

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Now that VMware has released their first set of patches for v Sphere, let the mass migrations begin! :) John Simon sent me over his

EXTENSIVE notes from our conversio n pro ject . We migrate d Virtual Machines from a 3.5 ESX farm to a new vSphere farm. The

migration was done with paralle l farms to minimize downtime. The swing servers allow us to co mplete a rolling upgrade of the

entire infrastr ucture with minimal downtime and risk. The enviro nment had shared storage betwe en the 2 VI sets and as we

cle ared an ESX 3.5 serv er of VMs, we would upgrade the ESX serve r to ESX4. We also built a new vCenter4 ser ver to manage the

new ESX4 servers and VMs as we brought them over.

Pr e r e q u is i t e s an d assu m p t ion s :

- The Admin has the vSphere v ersion 4 client and is attached to both the old and new VCenter serve rs.

- The Admin has schedule d downtime with the business for 5-10 mins outage per VM serve r.

- Yo u must know the loc al admin cre dentials for the serv er.

1. The first step is to shut down the curre ntly running serv er through the console on the 3.5 environment.

Click on the serv er name and TAKE NOTE OF THE LUN the serv er is on. Then click on the Console tab :

2. Write down all IP information which y ou must reset after the co nver sion.

To obtain the informatio n run ipco nfig/all from a command prompt:

3. Once y ou have sav ed all this informatio n click Start and shutdown to initiate a normal shutdown proc ess:
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4. Once the Machine is shut down completely , from the Infrastructur e client, right click on the machine and select Remov e

from Inventory:

5. Once the server is remov ed from the list switch to your vSphere Client.

Click on one of the ESX servers in the new cluster where you would like to add the VM.

Right click on the LUN where the serv er you are co nve rting is locat ed from Step 1 and select Browse Datastore:

6. From the window browse to the folder for the serv er you are conv erting and click to highlight.

From the right window pane, locate the * .VMX file and right click on that file and cho ose A dd to Inve ntory :
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7 . Select the Folder where you want the server to be added and the Display Name you want for the serv er and click Nex t

8. Ve rify the new serv er is in the list and close the Datasto re popup window:

9. Left click to highlight the serv er yo u are co nver ting and click the console tab. Then click the icon to power on the serve r:

10 . Login to the serv er as an acc ount with full administrator rights. Right click on the VM Tools icon by the c lock and click

Open:

11 . Form the tools window click on the button to Upgrade tools:


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12 . Click on OK to approv e the uninstall of the old tools and the install of the new ones:

13 . Click Nex t when prompte d by the new too ls install:

14. Click Nex t to accept the typical install and continue:

15 . Click Install to begin the installation:


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16. Verify the install was successful and click Finish:

17 . Click YES to restart the system to finish the install:

18. Once the machine restarts, log back into the conso le as an acc ount with full administrator rights.

Initiate a shutdown by click on Start and Shutdown:


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19. nce e mac ne s u y s u own, r g c c on e mac ne an se ec pgra e r ua ar ware:

20. Click Yes to confirm the Upgrade:

21 . With the machine still powered off, cli ck on Edit sett ings:

22. From the main popup screen click on the Options tab at the top:
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.

24. From the popup window, click on the Rese t all to Default option which should clear out all the information from the table:

25. Ve rify the table is clear and click OK and OK again to exit all the way out of Edit Settings:
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26. Once that is comp lete, press the v irtual button to POWER ON the serv er and click back on the Console tab:

27 . When the machine is powered on Log back into the machine as a user with full administrato r rights:

28. Wait for the System Settings Change to pop up and clic k Y ES to restart your co mputer now:


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29. Once the restart is co mplete d, log bac k into the machine as a user with full administrato r rights:

30. Verify all information is the same as the information yo u save for IP addressing by opening command prom pt and runningipconfig /all:

31 . Log off the co nsole of the serv er:

32. T HIS COMPLET ES T HE VMs CONVERSION!

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Y ou m ig ht al so like :

VMware ESX 3.5

Update 2 Goodies

vSphere vMotion

error : Mism atched

Host CPU features

More new stuff in

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Posted by Carlo

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Aggen 1 year ago

In this way the v ersion off VM stay s and it's not upgraded to 7. I ex port the VM instead to get to ve rsion 7 .

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Sokratis Galiatsis 1 year ago

Thanks a lot for the info!

I must admit it is one of the most detailed guides on the net.

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fackie 2 years ago

Thank you! Yo u have just sav ed me a ton of time!

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michael 2 years ago

why should yo u reset cpuid mask adv anced settings if y ou hav e "ex pose the nx/x d flag to guest" optio n selected?

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ccostan 2 years ago in reply to michael

We ran into an issue where while upgrading the VMs, it would leave a strange CPUid mask on them that would prevent

vMotions.

I wrote it up in an earlier post. Ill post the link when I get to a PC.

Carlo.

Sent from my BlackBerry ...

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ccostan 2 years ago in reply to ccostan

Check out http://www.vmwareinfo.com/2009...

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michael 2 years ago in reply to ccostan

thanks

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ane 12n 2 years ago

From twitterHow to migrate an ESX 3.5 v4 V M to vSphere v7 VM (VMwareInfo.co m) http://bit.ly/8x 7 WW

ccostan 2 years ago

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VMware Info_ How to Migrate an ESX 3.5 v4 VM to vSphere v7 VM

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