Migrate machines to VMWare vCenter VMs using standalone converter

From Notes_Wiki

Home > VMWare platform > VMWare vCenter > Migrate machines to VMWare vCenter VMs using standalone converter

VMWare standalone converter can be used for converting physical or virtual machines from different types of physical hardware or hypervisors to VMWare vCenter based VMs. For the conversion use following steps:

  1. Download correct VMWare standalone converter based on vCenter version from https://www.vmware.com/products/converter.html using "Download now" button. You will need a "My VMWare" account for the download.
  2. Install the converter on a Windows machine or VM. This can be a different machine or VM from the machine being converted
  3. Find "converter-worker.xml" in VMWare installation. This could be in "Program Files (x86)" or in "C:\Users\All Users\VMware\VMware vCenter Converter Standalone" etc. locations. Change '<useSsl>false</useSsl>' to disable SSL. This sometimes helps with IO error. In most cases it improves conversion speed
  4. After this restart "VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Worker" service.
  5. Disable firewall on VM where converter is installed
  6. The machine where converter is installed should use same DNS (may be same AD server) as used by VMWare infrastructure. Basically the VM should be able to resolve PSC and vCenter using FQDN.
    Use proxy mode in case source and Vcenter cant talk directly. Also useful in case DNS is messed up.
    Look at vcenter and ESXi host to determine FQDN even if admins connect to it using IP. Add both of them in etc/hosts file on both source and converter machine.
  7. The firewall should be disabled on the source machine or VM which is being migrated to VMWare infrastructure. If the source machine is behind NAT then all the TCP and UDP ports (0-65535) should pass through NAT.
  8. vCenter and PSC should resolve via FQDN on the source machine which is being converted also. If source machine cannot access vCenter etc. directly, (eg if it is public machine on AWS), then make sure 'Use Proxy' option while specifying vcenter destination details is selected.
  9. You can copy vCenter Standalone Agent setup to the source machine and install it manually. This is faster then waiting for converter server to deploy the agent via admin shares, RPC, etc. The setup should be available within "Program Files" or "Program Files (x86)" and then "VMWare standalone converter" folder.
  10. If a non-admin user is already logged into the source machine then User Account Control (UAC) might have to disabled for converter to work. This can be done by going to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options and disabling "Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode" option.
  11. Try to use the converter by giving local administrator credentials of the source machine and similarly administrator details for vCenter using FQDN. If the migration fails then ensure that disk on source is healthy using Windows drive checking tools (chkdsk) and also try to defragment the drive using standard Windows defragment tools
  12. If things are not working please refer to official documentation such as https://pubs.vmware.com/Release_Notes/en/converter/62/conv_sa_62_rel_notes.html to see that installed OS where converter is installed is supported. Also check whether Guest operating system which is migrated is supported in particular version of converter or not. The link also has large list of known issues and resolved issues for quick reference.
  13. Logs are available in C:\Users\Administrators\AppData\LocalData\VMWare or in C:\Program Files(x86)\VMWare\ locations for more troubleshooting, if required.
  14. We can synchronize changes as many times as we want. For final synchronization stop services at source and choose final synchronization.



Refer:



Home > VMWare platform > VMWare vCenter > Migrate machines to VMWare vCenter VMs using standalone converter