Best strategy to migrate of a Simplivity setup to a standard VMWare cluster

[J_Andersson]

I am currently facing a scenario where an existing HPE SimpliVity setup, hosting several hundred virtual machines (VMs), needs to be transitioned to a standard VMware setup. The replacement hardware consists of HPE DL 360 servers and an HPE Alletra MP iSCSI storage solution. In the new cluster, we plan to deploy VMware Foundation with a vCenter and ESXi.

To achieve this migration, we are exploring two potential approaches:

Veeam Backup & Replication: Leveraging the existing Veeam solution, we can directly migrate VMs from the SimpliVity vCenter to the new VMware vCenter using Veeam Replicate.

Migration Host: Alternatively, we could designate a specific host within either the old SimpliVity or new VMWare cluster as a dedicated “migration host.” However, it’s important to note that this approach may have limitations regarding the presentation of storage between SimpliVity and VMware.

I would greatly appreciate insights from anyone who has encountered a similar case or has experience with such migrations.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Regards,

Johan

Johan

[s-]

Hi @J_Andersson 

You can map Simplivity Datastore to non Simplivity host/Starndard ESXI host and once it is done perform the Compute and Storage vmotion .

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Jaipal

[J_Andersson]

Ok thank you.

I stumbled over articles saying that it can be a struggle to map Simplivity storage to external hosts. But i guess its a matter of getting VMKs right. And now i found another discussion here describing the command below for map to external host.

dsv-nfsd-export-add --path /mnt/svtfs/0/guid --client IP

I beleive that the current VMware license are vCenter Standard and it should ncludes storage vMotion or should we skip to att external hosts in the Simplivity vCenter and go for VM remove + attach in a fresh vCenter with the new hosts?

[s- · Accepted solution]

Hi @J_Andersson 

I can understand because customer will have to perform multiple steps . However, if required configuration is in place you should not be facing issue while mapping the Simplivity Datastore to Standard ESXI host. Here is document which explain step by step configuration for Standard ESXI host https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=a00131388en_us&docLocale=en_US Page. 61

Storage vMotion is included in the Standard, Enterprise Plus and Platinum editions of vSphere.

Also, If still have issue, you may engage support team by logging support case .

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Jaipal