Migrating VMs from Legacy Infrastructure to SimpliVity

This post provides an overview of some common migration methods which can be used to move VMs from a legacy infrastructure to the SimpliVity Hyperconverged.
Legacy Infrastructure:
Blade Center C300
SAN Network Brocade
HP 3par

Integrating SimpliVity into an new environment.                                                          SimpliVity is deployed to either replace the legacy environment, provide additional capacity to augment the legacy environment, or to support a specific use case/application. One new vCenter is used and SimpliVity is deployed into the environment.

Macro steps

1. Present a SimpliVity Datastore to a host in the legacy environment.
2. Use Storage vMotion to migrate VMs to SimpliVity Datastore.
3. Use vMotion to migrate VMs to SimpliVity node

The Storage vMotion will not have any impact on the availability of the VM being migrated.
The cluster simpplivity was enabled Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) to maintain the cpu compatibility of the VMS and perform the migration of the connected VMs.
How do we migrate the VMs that are in 3par storage to the simplivity environment? Storage 3par is accessed over the SAN network.
How do we migrate the VMs that are in 3par storage to the simplivity environment? Storage 3par is accessed over the SAN network.
Come on:

Procedure overview

You need to create at least one datastore for each cluster to hold virtual machine files.

Procedure

1. From vSphere Web Client Home, click HPE SimpliVity Federation.
2. You can also click Datastores to open the Objects tab and click the Create Datastore icon.
3. Select the cluster where you want the datastore to reside from the Cluster drop-down list..
4. Enter a unique name for the datastore in the New Datastore Name field
5. In the Backup Policy field, select the backup policy for the datastore from the drop-down list.
6. In the Size field, specify the datastore size (1 GB to 1,024 TB) and select the unit of measurement (GB or TB).
7. Click OK. You see the new datastore appear in the Objects tab list.

After creating the datastore let’s choose a vsphere host from the legacy environment to serve as a bridge so we can migrate our virtual machines.

Procedure overview

To enable standard ESXi host access to a federation datastore, you must configure some advanced settings.

Procedure

1. From vSphere Web Client Home, click vCenter Inventory Lists or Global Inventory Lists
2. Under Resources, click Hosts.
3. Right-click the standard ESXi host you want include and select Settings.
4. Under System, click Advanced System Settings.
5. From the Advanced System Settings table, change the following settings to the values shown (one at a time).

To change the value, select the item from the Name column, click the pencil icon ( ) or Edit (depending on your version of vSphere), change the value, and click OK:

• Net.TcpipHeapMax = 1536
• Net.TcpipHeapSize = 32
• NFS.MaxVolumes = 256
• SunRPC.MaxConnPerIP = 128
• NFS.MaxQueueDepth = 128

NOTE:                                                                                                                                             These changes apply to ESXi 6.0 or 6.5 hosts

Procedure overview

After you determine the IP address for storage traffic and configure the advanced settings, you can edit the host file.

Procedure

1. Edit the /etc/hosts file to include a line similar to the following:                            where nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn is the storage or management IP address you previously documented.

2. Do not restart the standard ESXi host. Continue to the Enabling or Disabling HPE SimpliVity Datastore Sharing” procedure to enable (or disable) sharing.

Procedure overview

After you determine the IP address for storage traffic, configure the NET and NFS settings, and edit the host file, you can enable datastore sharing for the appropriate standard ESXi host through the HPE SimpliVity datastore object.

NOTE:

You can also disable datastore sharing. However, you cannot disable sharing for standard ESXi hosts with virtual machines.

Procedure

1. Browse to HPE SimpliVity Federation > Datastores.
2. Right-click the datastore you want to share and click All HPE SimpliVity Actions > Manage Standard ESXi

Hosts to open the Manage Standard ESXi Hosts dialog box.

3. Do one of the following:

• To allow the hosts to share data with a Hewlett Packard Enterprise datastore, select the checkbox next to the appropriate host in the Shared column.

• To prevent hosts from sharing data with an HPE SimpliVity datastore, clear the checkbox next to the appropriate hosts. (If you see a virtual machine count for the host, you cannot disable datastore sharing.)

4. Click OK.

Now it’s easy, just perform the VMotion Storage of the VMs you want to migrate to the Simplivity environment and after doing the VMotion procedure for the simplivity environment hosts.