Moving VMs to a new host and format old host
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Hi everyone,
I have managed XCP in the past but i'm not sure what's the best practice to do this:
I have a VM that needs to be transfered on a vmware infrastructure because the customer has vmware in all his other servers apart from this one.
Now, he wants to keep the same hardware, so i must format xcp and install vmware. During this time he must not stop working.
My plan is simple: i bring him a temporary server with xcp 8.2.1 installed, live migrate the machine with XEN Orchestra, format the old host.
Since xen orchestra runs on this very host that i must format, will the new host run just as fine without Xen Orchestra? Do i have to detach the temporary host from xen before formatting? Do i have to install xen on the temporaty host as well or (since it's temporary), i can just manage it with XCP-Ng Center without issues?
If you have better solutions, i thank you in advance. -
@palova as long as any workloads (VMs) are moved off of this host ahead of the reinstallation, you'd be fine with the plan you already have scheduled.
Since this host isn't in a multi-host pool though, you may not be able to live migrate the VM to a new system without some downtime.
Since almost no system in the world is built for 99.999999999 of uptime (aside from Azure/AWS etc), this customer will likely have to give you a window of time that the VM can be shutdown and migrated, both from and too.
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@DustinB
Thanks for blazing fast response.
Yes, the downtime is calculated and the customer gave me a few hours window to do this, so i can actually just shut down the VM and move it. I'm more concerned with the Xen Orchestra part, wether i must install xen on the temporary server as well or not, and if the temporary server will run just fine when Xen orchestra will be formatted while being managed by it. -
@palova XO can be installed and used from anywhere, you could even have multiple XO instances running simultaneously on different systems all with access to the same singular host, just avoid having those instances run backup jobs etc.
It would be much easier to have XO running somewhere so you could administer this host before and post migration - that isn't running on either system.
Make sure you export a copy of the running configuration from XO you have now so you can import it into the final XO system once all migration work is completed.