VMware has released vCenter migration tool

VMware has released a vCenter Migration Tool to migrate Windows vCenter Server 5.5 to vCSA 6.0.

I recommend all my customer to use the vCSA 6.0 when posible, so this is great news, I have been using the Fling, but VMware removed the download from the Fling site, so looking forward to testing this GA version.

It only need's to support 6.0 to vCSA 60 migration also, but accroding to the VMware Blog about this, they say stay tuned, see the blog here: http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2016/09/vcenter-server-migration-tool-vsphere-6-0-update-2m.html

What's New

Windows vCenter Server to vCenter Server Appliance Migration Tool: This release introduces a tool to migrate an existing installation of the vCenter Server on Windows to vCenter Server Appliance. The tool can perform the following migrations without changing the vSphere deployment topology.

Source	Destination
vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 (custom install)	Platform Services Controller 6.0 Update 2 Appliance (external deployment)
vCenter Server 5.5 (custom install)	vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 Update 2 with external Platform Services Controller
vCenter Single Sign-On 5.5 + vCenter Server 5.5	vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 Update 2 with embedded Platform Services Controller

The migration tool performs the following operations:

• Uses the Migration Assistant that you run on the Windows system on which vCenter Server is installed to facilitate migration.

• Performs the pre-migration checks of the source vCenter Server installation before starting the migration.

• Uses the vCenter Server or the ESXi to deploy the new vCenter Server Appliance.

• Provides two data migration choices:

   

  • Core vCenter Server Inventory data
  • Performance and Historical (Tasks and Events) data and Core vCenter Servere Inventory data
• Supports both external and embedded databases for the source Windows vCenter Server instance.

   

  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • Microsoft SQL Express
  • Oracle

• Migrates the vCenter Server database to the embedded PostgreSQL database in the target vCenter Server Appliance.

• Migrates the registration information of all VMware extensions.

See the Release notes here: http://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/vsphere/60/vsphere-vcenter-server-60u2m-release-notes.html