Migrating to VSAN

Migrating to vSAN December 15, 2017

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Migrating to vSAN

Table of Contents 1. Migrating from VMFS/NFS 1.1.Introduction 1.1. Introduction 1.2.Modes 1.2. Modes of vMotion 1.3.Preparation 1.3. Preparation 1.4.Migration 1.4. Migration Scenarios 1.5.Limits 1.5. Limits and Considerations 1.6.References 1.6. References 1.7.About 1.7. About the Authors 2. Migrating RDMs to vSAN 2.1.Introduction 2.1. Introduction 2.2.Migrating 2.2. Migrating non-shared RDMs to vSAN 2.3.Migrating 2.3. Migrating Windows shared disk quorum to File Share Witness 2.4.Migrating 2.4. Migrating VMs with shared RDMs to vSAN 2.5.About 2.5. About the Author 3. Migrating physical machines to vSAN 3.1.Migrating 3.1. Migrating physical machines to vSAN 4. Orchestrating mass a migration to vSAN 4.1.Introduction 4.1. Introduction 4.2.vSphere 4.2. vSphere Replication interoperability with vSAN 4.3.Using 4.3. Using SRM to migrate virtual machines with vSphere Replication

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Table of Contents 1. Migrating from VMFS/NFS 1.1.Introduction 1.1. Introduction 1.2.Modes 1.2. Modes of vMotion 1.3.Preparation 1.3. Preparation 1.4.Migration 1.4. Migration Scenarios 1.5.Limits 1.5. Limits and Considerations 1.6.References 1.6. References 1.7.About 1.7. About the Authors 2. Migrating RDMs to vSAN 2.1.Introduction 2.1. Introduction 2.2.Migrating 2.2. Migrating non-shared RDMs to vSAN 2.3.Migrating 2.3. Migrating Windows shared disk quorum to File Share Witness 2.4.Migrating 2.4. Migrating VMs with shared RDMs to vSAN 2.5.About 2.5. About the Author 3. Migrating physical machines to vSAN 3.1.Migrating 3.1. Migrating physical machines to vSAN 4. Orchestrating mass a migration to vSAN 4.1.Introduction 4.1. Introduction 4.2.vSphere 4.2. vSphere Replication interoperability with vSAN 4.3.Using 4.3. Using SRM to migrate virtual machines with vSphere Replication

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1. Migrating from VMFS/NFS Outlines the simple migration from VMFS and NFS based datastores to vSAN.

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Migrating to vSAN

1.1 Introduction

Introduction Migration strategies and options for vSAN are numerous depending on your environment and implementation of vSphere. This article will discuss the native options for migrating virtual machine workloads to vSAN. The methodologies presented are valid for vSAN in general, vSAN Ready Nodes clusters as well as hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) appliances such as Dell EMC VxRail™ Appliances. Minimal or no recon figuration will be emphasized as well as maintaining virtual machine uptime, avoiding downtime where possible. While third-party options and solutions, such as backup, r ecovery, and replication are valid options; those items are out of scope for this document due to extra cost and resources involved to deploy, configure and implement. Recommendations presented are based on current VMware best practices. We will cover topics including migration within an existing data center with both shared and nonshared storage, from physical servers direct to vSAN and migrating between physically disparate data centers.

1.2 Modes of vMotion

Modes of vMotion Migration of a virtual machine can be either compute only, storage only or both simultaneously. Also, you can use vMotion to migrate virtual machines across: vCenter Server instances; virtual and physical data centers; and subnets. vMotion operations are transparent to the virtual machine being migrated. If errors occur during migration, the virtual machine reverts to its original state and location.

Compute vMotion Compute mode vMotion operations usually occur within the same logical vSphere cluster, The two hosts involved in a vMotion can, however, reside in separate logical or physical clusters.

Storage vMotion Storage vMotion is the migration the files, that belong to a running virtual machine, residing on one discrete datastore to another discrete datastore.

Combined vMotion When you choose to change both the host and the datastore, the virtual machine state moves to a new host and the virtual disks move t o another datastore.

Shared-nothing vMotion Also known as vMotion without shared storage, allows you to utilize vMotion to migrate virtual machines to a di fferent compute resource and storage simultaneously. Unlike Storage vMotion, which requires a single host to have access to both the source and destination datastore, you can migrate virtual machines across storage accessibility boundaries. vMotion does not require shared storage. This is useful for performing cross-cluster migrations when the target cluster machines might not have access to the source cluster's storage.

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Cross-vCenter vMotion Also known as vMotion between vCenter instances and long-distance vMotion allows for the migration of VMs across vCenter boundaries both within and outside an SSO domain as well as over links with up to a 150ms RTT (Round Trip Time). Migration between two vCenter servers within the same SSO domain is accomplished within the vSphere web interface, which leverages enhanced linked mode (ELM). While migration between two vCenter servers that are members of different SSO domains require APIs/SDK initiation.

Migration of VMs between vCenter instances moves VMs to new virtual networks; the migration process issues checks to verify that the source and destination networks are similar. vCenter performs network compatibility checks to prevent the following misconfigurations: • • • • •

MAC address incompatibility on the destination host vMotion from a distributed switch to a standard switch vMotion between distributed switches of di fferent versions vMotion to an isolated network vMotion to a distributed switch that is not functioning properly

Despite these checks, however, it is prudent to ensure that: • Source and destination distributed switches are in the same broadcast domain • Source and destination distributed switches have the same services con figured

1.3 Preparation

Preparation To allow for a successful migration of VM workloads onto vSAN a review of your current virtual infrastructure is advised. Extension of the existing vMotion network into the new vSAN environment is required, allowing for migration of the VM workload from its current location to the new vSAN infrastructure. There are many possible valid con figurations for compute and storage, but for migration into vSAN there are speci fic requirements listed below:

Source Environment Licensing • Essentials Plus or higher for vMotion feature • Enterprise Plus or higher for Cross-vCenter vMotion • Enterprise Plus for long-distance vMotion

NTP • Uniform time synchronization is required for the vCenter and ESXi hosts

vCenter Topology • One vCenter, one SSO domain • Two vCenters, one SSO domain

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• Two vCenters, two SSO domains

Networking • L2 (Layer two) adjacency between source and destination VM networks • VSS or VDS configuration at, or greater than, version 6.0.0

ESXi • ESXi v6.0 or above for Cross-vCenter migration

Clusters • If EVC (Enhanced vMotion Compatibility) is enabled, the source cluster must be at

a lower or equal EVC level to the target cluster Virtual Machine • Application dependencies • RDMs – either converted to VMFS or migrated to in-guest iSCSI • VMTools will require an update if VM is migrated to a newer ESXi version

Destination Environment The destination vSphere environment requires network access for the virtual machine matching the source environment, for example, VLAN access and IP addresses must be considered. Additionally, advanced configurations such as DRS a ffinity rules, and Storage Policies will need to be re-created on the target environment if they are still required.

Cold Migration Considerations While this operation can be done "live," organizations may choose to migrate with VMs powered off. vMotion of a powered-o ff or suspended virtual machine is known a cold migration and can be utilized to move virtual machines from one data center to another. A cold migration can be operated manually or via a scheduled task. By default, data migrated in a cold state via vMotion, cloning, and snapshots is transferred through the management network. This tra ffic is called provisioning tra ffic and is not encrypted. On a host, you can dedicate a separate VMkernel interface to provisioning tra ffic, for example, to isolate this tra ffic on another VLAN. A provisioning VMkernel interface is useful if you plan to transfer high volumes of virtual machine data that the management network cannot accommodate or have a dedicated network for migration data between clusters or datacenters. For information about enabling provisioning tra ffic on a separate VMkernel adapter, see the vSphere networking documentation .

1.4 Migration Scenarios

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Migration Scenarios The previous sections highlighted Compute, Network and Virtual Machine con figuration recommendations and requirements; we will now focus on the vCenter and SSO configuration. The main migration topologies supported are listed below. • Topology A: Single vCenter, Single SSO domain • Topology B: Two vCenters, Single SSO domain • Topology C: Two vCenters, Two SSO domains

We recommend that the source vCenter be v6.0 or higher. If using a VDS, it must be version 6.0 or above for cross vCenter migration. The initiation of the vMotion operations can be via the vSphere Web Client or API (PowerCLI). In addition to the supported topologies, there are source and destination vCenter versions that need to be adhered to: Source vCenter version

Target vCenter version

Supported

Method

6.0

6.0

Yes

UI and API

6.0

6.5

Yes

API

6.5

6.0

No

N/A

6.5

6.5

Yes

UI and API

Single vCenter, Single SSO Domain The migration is initiated from the vSphere web interface. As both clusters are in the same vCenter, no special considerations need to be made. A migration of both compute resource and storage takes place with no shared storage available across both clusters. The source datastore is not accessible from the target cluster.

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Two vCenters, Two SSO Domains The migration is initiated from the API (via PowerCLI), the vCenter servers are in di fferent SSO domains. A migration of both compute resource and storage takes place with no shared storage available across both clusters. The source datastore is not accessible from the target cluster.

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Two vCenters, Single SSO Domain The migration is initiated from the vSphere web interface, Enhanced Linked Mode (ELM) is utilized meaning vCenter servers are in the same SSO domain. A migration of both compute resource and storage takes place with no shared storage available across both clusters. The source datastore is not accessible from the target cluster.

1.5 Limits and Considerations

Limits and Considerations Simultaneous Migrations vCenter places limits on the number of simultaneous VM migration and p rovisioning operations that can occur on each host, network, and datastore. Each operation, such as a migration with vMotion or cloning a VM, is assigned a resource cost. Each host, datastore, or network resource, has a maximum cost that it can support at any one time. Any new migration or provisioning operation that causes a resource to exceed its maximum cost is queued until the other in- flight operations reach completion. Each of the network, datastore, and host limits must be satis fied for the operation to pr oceed. vMotion without shared storage, the act of migrating a VM to a di fferent host and datastore simultaneously, is a combination of vMotion and Storage vMotion. This migration inherits the network, host, and datastore costs associated with both of those operations.

Network Limits Network limits apply only to migrations with vMotion. Network limits depend on the version of ESXi and the network type.

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Operation

ESXi Version

Network Type

Maximum concurrent vMotions per Host

vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

1 GbE

4

vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

10 GbE

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Considerations must be made for uplink speed of the NIC assigned to the vMotion service. For example, if you are using vMotion from a 1GbE source vMotion network to a vSAN Target destination with 10GbE, you will be throttled to the lower speed of the two.

Datastore Limits Datastore limits apply to migrations with vMotion and with Storage vMotion. Migration with vMotion and Storage vMotion have individual resource costs against a VM's datastore. The maximum number of operations per datastore are listed below. Operation

ESXi Version

Max per Datastore

vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

128

Storage vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

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Host Limits Host limits apply to migrations with vMotion, Storage vMotion, and other provisioning operations such as cloning, deployment, and cold migration. All hosts have a maximum number of operations they can support. Listed below are the number of operations that are supported per host - note that combinations of operations are allowed and are queued and executed automatically by vCenter when resources are available to the host. Operation

ESXi Version

Max operations per Host

vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

8

Storage vMotion

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

2

Shared-Nothing vMotion

5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

2

Other provisioning operations

5.0, 5.1, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5

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1.6 References

References PowerCLI An example migration script for moving VMs between vCenters and SSO domains, using PowerCLI, is shown below. The script moves myVM from myVC1 to myVC2 on to target port group myPortGroup and datastore vsanDatastore .

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Connect-VIServer 'myVC1' -Username -Password Connect-VIServer 'myVC2' -Username -Password $vm = Get-VM 'myVM' -Location 'hostOnVC1' $destination = Get-VMHost 'hostOnVc2' $networkAdapter = Get-NetworkAdapter -VM $vm $destinationPortGroup = Get-VDPortgroup -VDSwitch 'VDSOnVC2' -Name 'myPortGroup' $destinationDatastore = Get-Datastore 'vsanDatastore' $vm | Move-VM -Destination $destination -NetworkAdapter $networkAdapter PortGroup $destinationPortGroup -Datastore $destinationDatastore More information and detail on the Move-VM command can be found here: https:// blogs.vmware.com/PowerCLI/2017/01/spotlight-move-vm-cmdlet.html

KBs and Whitepapers The vCenter Server Host Management guide covers: • • • •

vMotion Shared Storage Requirements vSphere vMotion Networking Requirements Networking Best Practices for vSphere vMotion Enhanced vMotion Compatibility

“EVC and CPU Compatibility FAQ” - https://kb.vmware.com/kb/1005764 “Enhanced vMotion Compatibility (EVC) processor support" - https://kb.vmware.com/ kb/1003212 “Long Distance vMotion Requirements” - https://kb.vmware.com/kb/2106949 “Cross vCenter vMotion Requirements in vSphere 6.0” - https://kb.vmware.com/ kb/2106952

1.7 About the Authors

About The Authors Vuong Pham Vuong Pham is a Senior Solutions Architect who has been in IT for 19 years in many aspects of IT. Presales, Design, Implementation, and Operations of small, medium and enterprise environments across multiple industries. He is SME in virtualization, data protection and storage solutions for multiple vendors. His current focus is HCIA VxRail solutions. VCP 3,4,5,VCAP Design, VCAP Administration, EMCIE. You can follow Vuong on Twitter as: @Digital_kungfu

Myles Gray Myles Gray is a Senior Technical Marketing Architecture for VMware in the Storage and Availability business unit, primarily focused on storage solutions. With a background as a customer and partner in infrastructure engineering, design, operations, and pre-sales roles. He is a VCIX6-NV and VCAP6-DCV. You can find him on Twitter as: @mylesagray

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2. Migrating RDMs to vSAN Outlines moving VMs with physical and virtual mode RDMs to vSAN.

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2.1 Introduction

Introduction Traditionally, there have been two particular reasons why people use RDMs in a vSphere environment: To allow the addition of disks to VMs that were larger than 2TB in size; For shared-disks, such as quorum and shared-data drives for solutions like SQL FCI, Windows CSVs. The first of these is trivial to address - the limitation for 2TB VMDKs was removed with ESXi 5.5 and VMFS-5. The limit is now the same as with RDMs at 62TB, and as such RDMs should no longer be considered for this use-case. The second is the main reason RDMs may still be in use today: Shared-disk quorum and data between VMs. In this section, we will address the migration of non-shared disk RDMs to native vSAN objects, as well as the transition of shared-disks from the legacy RDM based approach to in-guest iSCSI initiators.

2.2 Migrating non-shared RDMs to vSAN

Virtual Mode Non-shared RDMs are trivial to migrate to vSAN, as they can be live storage vMotioned to VMDKs. To start with your RDMs must be in virtual compatibility mode to leverage a storage vMotion conversion to VMDK. After converting any physical mode RDMs you have t o virtual mode, you may then initiate a storage vMotion to vSAN directly. You can see in the below example, I svMotion a VM with a virtual mode RDM, live, to a vSAN datastore and its RDM is converted to a native vSAN object:

Choose Migrate... and Change storage only:

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Change the policy to your chosen SPBM policy and choose the target vSAN datastore:

After the migration has completed, you will notice that the disk type is no-longer RDM, rather it is listed as a VDMK and is editable as it is not a first-class citizen of the datastore:

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Physical Mode If you have physical mode RDMs they cannot have the LUN contents migrated live and would require a cold migration. Under the consideration that most physical mode RDMs are created for large data sets, to minimise downtime from a cold migration we recommend converting the RDMs to v irtual mode first, then carrying out t he necessary storage vMotion to convert the disk to a VMDK which can be done while the VM is operational. The process for this can be found in our KB here: KB 1006599

Bus-sharing SCSI Controllers N.B: If any of the SCSI controllers in the VM are engaged in bus-sharing (they shouldn't be if the disks are not shared between VMs), whether physical or v irtual mode, the storage vMotion will fail validation and not allow the migration to vSAN with the below error:

2.3 Migrating Windows shared disk quorum to File Share Witness

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Introduction Shared disk RDMs in either virtual or physical compatibility mode have been enabled typically to provide support for guest OS clustering quorum mechanisms. Since Windows Server 2008, the need for a dedicated quorum shared disk has not been necessary. Instead, you can use a FSW (File Share Witness), the FSW can be a standard Windows server on a vSAN datastore. File Share Witness fault-detection provides the same level of redundancy and failure d etection as traditional shared-disk quorum techniques, without the additional operational and installation complexity that those solutions command.

Migration Below you can see I have a SQL FCI cluster with two nodes, currently utilizing a shared-disk for cluster quorum:

We are going to convert this cluster to File Share Witness quorum, I have a file server in the environment (file01) and have created a standard Windows file share on it called: sql-c-quorum. N.B: This can be done live and is not service a ffecting. Firstly, right click on the cluster and got to More Actions -> Con figure Cluster Quorum Settings...

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Then we will select "select the quorum witness":

Tell the cluster we are going to use a FSW:

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Insert the file share we configured when prompted:

You will see a dialogue telling you that the cluster voting is enabled and was successful:

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We can then verify we are operating in FSW mode on the main dialogue of the Failover Cluster Manager:

The VM no longer requires the RDMs used for cluster quorum or voting and they can be removed - this VM can now be migrated to vSAN by a simple storage vMotion and no downtime is required for the entire operation.

2.4 Migrating VMs with shared RDMs to vSAN

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Introduction Shared RDMs have traditionally been an operational blocker to any migration or maintenance due to the complexity they create in an environment as well as the version dependencies they introduce and speci fic VM configurations they command. Organizations may wish to simplify their operations by having their VMs all operating under a single compute cluster with homogenous con figurations at a vSphere level. Detailed below is the process for migrating VMs with existing shared RDMs, from physical and virtual mode RDMs to instead using in-guest iSCSI initiators; This allows clustered VMs to be migrated into a vSAN environment to reduce operational complexity while leaving data in place on the existing SAN.

Example Setup The use case covered is a WSFC (Window Server Failover Cluster) for a SQL FCI. In the below figure; there are three disks shared between the VMs for data access for: SQL Data, Logs, and Backups. Volumes presentation to the VM utilizes physical mode RDMs.

Figure 1 - Computer Management layout of cluster disks

Note: in the below example, the RDMs are in physical mode and are on Virtual Device Node; "SCSI controller 1". This information is essential to record for later as it will be necessary to remove this SCSI controller after removing the RDMs from the VM configuration.

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Figure 2 - Disk attachment via physical mode RDMs

As a point of reference, RDMs are provided in this environment via an EMC Unity array with iSCSI connectivity on four uplink ports (Ethernet Port 0-3) with IPs of 10.0.5.7-10 respectively.

Figure 3 - iSCSI target connectivity on the array side

Preparation 21

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To migrate existing RDMs, whether in physical mode or virtual mode the simplest option is to move the LUNs to an in-guest iSCSI initiator. Given RDMs are simply raw LUNs mapped through to a VM directly, storage presentation to the VM remains the same. VMs will have the same control over LUNs as they would have with an RDM and application operations will be una ffected by the migration. In preparation, there are a few steps that must be completed on each VM in the cluster to allow for iSCSI connectivity to the SAN presented LUNs. Firstly, we will need to add a NIC connected to the iSCSI network to the VM.

Figure 4 - iSCSI network attached to VM via separate NIC

Next, the Windows iSCSI Initiator needs to be initialized. When prompted to have the iSCSI service start automatically on boot, select Yes.

Figure 5 - iSCSI initiator service auto-start prompt In the following window, add one of the SAN's iSCSI targets into the Quick Connect section of the dialogue box. There is no need to add every target here; after MPIO is con figured the array should 22

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communicate all target paths that can be used for LUN connectivity to the iSCSI Initiator, providing load balancing and failover capabilities.

Figure 6 - Adding in iSCSI targets to Windows iSCSI Initiator

At this point, you can apply MPIO policies speci fic to your array and OS version. Refer to your vendor's documentation for con figuring MPIO in a Windows environment. Next, add the VM’s iSCSI initiator into the SAN’s zoning policy for the RDM LUNs. This again will vary from vendor to vendor. You can see below that the host object has been created on the SAN and has been given access to the three LUNs that are used for shared data between VMs.

Figure 7 - Allowing the iSCSI initiator access to the RDM LUNs

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VM RDM Reconfiguration At this point, migration from RDM to in-guest termination can begin. It would be prudent to start with the secondary node in the cluster, and given that WSFC is not transparent during role transferral, carrying out this work during a maintenance window is advised. Firstly, place the node undergoing reconfiguration into the "Paused" mode from the Failover Cluster Manager console, choosing to "Drain Roles" during maintenance.

Figure 8 - Pausing node membership in a WSFC

Shut down the secondary VM, and remove the RDMs and the shared SCSI controller from it. It is important to note that when you are deleting the disks from this node that you should not click "delete from datastore", remember: These are still in use by the primary node in the WSFC. Navigate to the VM in the vSphere Web Client and choose "Edit Settings" from here remove the disks and click "Ok."

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Figure 9 - Removing RDMs from VM configuration on the secondary node It is necessary to enter "Edit Settings" once more, now that the bus-sharing SCSI controller we recorded at the start is unused, and remove it. N.B: using controller SCSI0:* is not supported for

shared/clustered RDMs, so RDMs should always be on a tertiary SCSI controller - you can verify this by checking the sharing mode on the controller.

Figure 10 - Removing the bus-sharing SCSI controller previously used by the RDMs

Power up the secondary VM and log in. Currently, the shared disks are not presented to the VM. Open up the iSCSI Initiator dialogue; your targets should all have connected at this point. 25

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Figure 11 - iSCSI targets all reconnected on boot Navigate to the "Volumes and Devices" section, and click "Auto Con figure", this will mount the disks and display their MPIO identifiers in the Volume List.

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Figure 12 - Volume Auto Configure list Opening up the Windows disk management dialogue, you should now be able to see the disks connected but in the "Reserved" state. The reserved and o ffline state is expected, as this node is not the active node in the cluster, once a role transfer is complete you will see these disks listed via their volume identifier (D:\, E:\, F:\). Right-clicking on one of the disks and selecting "Properties" you will be able to see each disk's LUN ID as well as speci fics on MPIO, multi-pathing policies, and partition type.

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Figure 13 - Disk management dialogue showing the disks re-presented via iSCSI Reintroduce the VM into the WFSC, open the Failover Cluster Manager and right-click the secondary node that has been undergoing maintenance, choose "Resume" selecting "Do not fail back roles".

Figure 14 - Adding the secondary node back into the WSFC

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Ensure the WSFC console says the cluster is healthy, that both nodes are "Up" and transfer any roles from primary to secondary. The disks will automount via iSCSI at this time as the volume signature has remained the same. To transfer the roles over to the secondary node navigate to "Roles," right click, choose "Move" and "Select Node...", then choose the recon figured node.

Figure 15 - Transferring roles over to the secondary node

Ensure your services are operating as expected, as mentioned earlier, in disk manager on the secondary node now, volumes will be listed but, with their volume identi fiers.

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Figure 16 - Disk manager showing the volumes as active and identi fied correctly

As before, enter the node to be migrated into "Paused" mode and choose "Drain Roles," then shut down the VM.

Figure 17 - Draining roles from the node to undergo maintenance

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In the vSphere console, locate the VM (in this case; sql-c-01) and "Edit Settings". Remove the RDMs as before, but this time choose “delete from datastore,” this is safe to do as no other nodes are actively using these RDM pointer files anymore. Note; choosing "delete from datastore" does not delete data from the underlying LUN, which remains unaffected, this operation only removes the RDM pointer files from the VMFS upon which, they are situated.

Figure 18 - Removing and deleting RDM pointer files from the VM

As previously, navigate back into "Edit Settings" and delete the bus-sharing SCSI controller from the VM's con figuration.

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Figure 19 - Deleting the bus-sharing SCSI controller from the VM con figuration Power the VM on and open the iSCSI Initiator dialogue, verify that the targets are all listed as "Connected," navigate to the Volumes and Devices dialogue and click "Auto Con figure". The volumes will now show up in the volume list, detailed by their MPIO identi fier.

Figure 20 - Volume list detailing the MPIO identifiers for the iSCSI mounted volumes Verify the disks show up in the Windows disk management snap-in and exhibit a "Reserved" and an offline state; again this is normal for the passive node in the cluster, only the active node mounts the volumes.

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Figure 21 - Volumes are shown in disk manager as Reserved and o ffline

Open the Failover Cluster Manager dialogue again and navigate to the "Nodes" section, then resume the node's participation in the cluster, choosing "Do not fail back roles". Ensure the cluster is reformed healthily and both nodes indicate a status of "Up".

Figure 22 - WSFC is shown as healthy, and both nodes are in the "Up" state

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At this point the WSFC disk migration is complete, both VMs have had their RDMs removed and now rely on in-guest iSCSI initiators for connectivity to shared disks. You can optionally transfer the WSFC roles back to the primary node, as a matter of preference.

Migration to vSAN With the RDMs and bus-sharing SCSI controllers gone, we can now migrate the VM to vSAN. Note: This only migrates the VM's objects that are accessible to vSphere (VMX, swap, namespace, OS and non-shared VMDKs), the data for the shared disks still resides on the SAN. Please refer to the documentation on migrating a VM residing on VMFS/NFS to vSAN .

Rollback In the circumstance you wish to migrate a VM back from the new mode of operation to the previous mode of operation, this is achievable by Storage vMotioning the VM from the vSAN datastore to a VMFS volume (required for RDM and bus-sharing compatibility) and following the below steps: • Enter secondary node into "Paused" mode in WSFC • Attach a bus-sharing SCSI controller to the secondary node in your chosen mode • • • • • • • • • •

(physical/virtual) “Disconnect” active iSCSI sessions on the secondary node and remove all iSCSI Initiator configuration Connect RDMs to the secondary node in the same mode as the SCSI controller Check the volumes show up as "Reserved" in disk manager Failover WSFC roles from primary to secondary Enter primary node into "Paused" mode in WSFC Attach a bus-sharing SCSI controller to the primary node in your chosen mode (physical/virtual) “Disconnect” active iSCSI sessions on the primary node and remove all iSCSI Initiator configuration Connect RDMs to the primary node in the same mode as the SCSI controller Check the volumes show up as "Reserved" in disk manager Optionally, fail WSFC roles back to the primary node

2.5 About the Author

About the Author Myles Gray Myles Gray is a Senior Technical Marketing Architecture for VMware in the Storage and Availability business unit, primarily focused on storage solutions. With a background as a customer and partner in infrastructure engineering, design, operations, and pre-sales roles. He is a VCIX6-NV and VCAP6-DCV. You can find him on Twitter as: @mylesagray

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3. Migrating physical machines to vSAN Migrating legacy physical hardware based machines to VMs on vSAN.

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3.1 Migrating physical machines to vSAN

Migrating physical machines to vSAN VMware Converter supports the migration of physical Windows and Linux hosts, as well as VMs to a new virtual environment with minimal downtime to support shutdown and destination startup, as such this is an out of hours migration procedure. This support has been extended to vSAN and enables organizations to migrate their existing physical hosts direct to vSAN with no interim steps required. When using VMware Converter, choose the vSAN Datastore as the target location for the converted machine - it will migrate to the datastore with the default vSAN storage policy.

Figure 1: Select vsanDatastore as the destination for the new VM Ensure to change all disk t ypes to thin during the migration - in the options section, select Advanced then adjust all disk types to thin .

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Figure 2: Enter Advanced disk modi fication mode

Figure 3: Change all disk types to thin

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For additional information, please consult the VMware Converter documentation.

Constraints Be aware that if your physical machines participate in a WSFC or shared-disk clustering, please reference our guide on migrating these machines to in-guest iSCSI termination before attempting a migration to vSAN to ensure supportability throughout and after the migration process. The process is a similar process on physical machines as it would be on VMs with RDMs.

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4. Orchestrating mass a migration to vSAN Details the use of Site Recovery Manager and vSphere Replication for migrations to vSAN

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4.1 Introduction

Introduction Customers may wish to migrate hundreds, or thousands of VMs in a predictable and repeatable fashion, there are a number of ways t o orchestrate the migration of large numbers of VMs, in this section we will cover the use of vSphere Replication and Site Recovery Manager to migrate large numbers of VMs in a similar fashion to a destination vSAN datastore. Included in this coverage will be migrations to a vSAN datastore within the same datacenter (in a different cluster), in another vCenter and in a separate SSO domain.

4.2 vSphere Replication interoperability with vSAN

vSphere Replication interoperability with vSAN vSphere Replication supports vSAN in its entirety, as a source and destination datastore, Storage Policy Based Management is also supported with vSphere Replication, this allows customers to select disparate storage policies for source and destination datastores. Utilising storage policies in this way allows for storage e fficiencies and cost savings. For example: If at the primary site you have a large cluster utilizing a storage policy with FTT (Failures to tolerate) set to two, this allows for extra redundancy in the event of hardware failures. However, on the secondary site, a smaller cluster is utilized to save costs, VMs can be replicated with a storage policy specifying that FTT is set to one in order to save space on the smaller copies, the lower redundancy on the target site can save on ongoing capital and operational expenses while still providing an e ffective replication target for DR. For more information on using vSphere Replication with vSAN, check out our Tech Note here . A clickthrough demo is also available to demonstrate this capability.

4.3 Using SRM to migrate virtual machines with vSphere Replication

Using SRM to migrate VMs with vSphere Replication Site Recovery Manager can be used in conjunction with vSphere Replication to migrate large numbers of VMs from an existing vSphere cluster to a new vSAN based one. This approach has the caveat of requiring VM downtime, however, can be used e ffectively when vMotion cannot be used or a largescale migration of VMs is required, it is prudent to schedule this work during a maintenance window as it will require VM downtime.

Migrating large numbers of VMs The migration of large numbers of VMs usually r equires orchestration - SRM provides this capability when paired with vSphere Replication through the use of Protection Groups and Recovery Plans. It is important to note that in order to use SRM, the target vSAN cluster must be in a separate vCenter instance to the source vCenter, this is a limitation imposed by SRM from continuity and DR perspective. vSphere Replication is limited to the recovery/migration of a single VM at once - SRM, conversely, can support concurrent migration of up to 2,000 VMs. SRM also provides the ability to orchestrate changes to VMs upon migration, for example, IP addresses if the migrations are across L3 (Layer 3

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