How to Migrate Windows Based vCenter Server to VCSA 6.7

As you may already aware VMware has released the vSphere 6.7 and it ships with lots of new features and I’d like to show you the complete steps to Migrate Windows Based vCenter Server to VCSA 6.7. It is much similar to Windows based vCenter server to VCSA 6.5 Migration and I previously posted a blog post about the Migration.  vCenter 6.7 has released with a new appearance and I have tested it in my lab at the very first day of the release. Read my blog post about the vCenter Server 6.7 first impression here.

Before you start your migration make sure to check the VMware Product Interoperability Matrices and cross check your environment support. VMware vCenter Server 6.7 migration supports only for vCenter Server 6.0 and upper versions for the Migrations. If your vCenter is sitting in vSphere 5.5 or lesser version make sure to upgrade your vCenter Server to vCenter Server 6.0 first.

vCenter Server 6.7 can manage only ESXi version 6.0 and upper versions. If your environment consists with ESXi version 5.5 and lower versions you have to upgrade the ESXi version 6.0 first.

Migrate Windows Based vCenter Server to VCSA 6.7 From the Beginning (Stage -1 )

Migration of Windows based vCenter Server to VCSA 6.5 and 6.7 has no difference in steps, but I wanted show you the complete steps of the Migration so anyone can start and plan their migration without wasting time in their test labs. It is a two stage process and as the Stage – 1 it deploys the appliance and continue the configuration in stage – 2.

First things first, I assume you already fully patched your Windows based vCenter server from the Operating System Patches, because running the Migration assistant will require the C++ 2005 redistributable binaries installed on the system otherwise migration assistant will fail the prechecks.

Download the vCenter Server 6.7 Appliance and mount it to the Windows based vCenter server (6.0) and run the Migration Assistant located in “VMware VCSA/migration-assistant” folder as shown in the below screen capture.

Ensure that there is no errors in the Prechecks of the Migration Assistant and you can start the Migration once you get the “Waiting for Migration to start …” notification

Now login to another server in your network and mount the vCenter Server 6.7 ISO and go to the

Select the Migrate Option, you can see a small self explanatory description under Migration tab

Nothing to do with the Introduction Page, Just click Next

Accept the “Terms of the License Agreement”

Provide the source vCenter Server details , Migration Assistant will use the default port. If you are intend to use a different port please specify otherwise use default port

Just verify the thumbprint in the next step

Specify the target vCenter or the ESXi host details and credentials

Accept the certificate

Specify the Virtual Machine name and the the root password

Specify the deployment size, if you are intend to use the VCHA feature at least you need to select the size as small. You can see the required resource size in the table

Select the target datastore, I’m enabling thin provisioned virtual disks for my deployment. In a production environment I do not encourage to enable thin provision disks for your vCenter server

Provide the networking details and we need to have a temporary IP address as similar to the 6.5 Migration

Review your settings and Click on Finish to start the deployment and complete the stage -1 of the Migration

Just wait for the completion of the Stage -1 of the migration

Once it completed the Stage – 1 of the migration Continue to the Stage – 2

Migrate Windows Based vCenter Server to VCSA 6.7 : Stage -2

As similar to the previous stage nothing to do with the Introduction and just click Next

Then it will perform a pre-checks

You can see the pre-Migration check results and errors and warnings can be seen in the window. In my case I have two networks connected to the source vCenter Server and it gave as a warning as it cannot add the network adapter as a part of the migration

Provide the AD account credentials which has the privilege to add this appliance to the AD domain. You can perform this task later if you need

After validating the credentials select the migration data which you want to migrate from the old vCenter server. Migration process time will vary depending on the data set you select here

Tick or untick the CEIP selection according to your requirement and this is completely optional

I hope, I don’t want to mention that you need to take a backup of the database before you start the migration and confirm that you have taken the backup in this stage. Also, you can see the summary of the configuration selections in this window

It will give you a Warning to the shutdown of the source Virtual Machine. Migration wizard will automatically power off the source virtual machine

It will start the Migration wizard, there three main steps similar to the 6.5 migration

I got this information at the end of the stage two

Finally, it completed the migration from Windows vCenter 6.0 to VCSA 6.7

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