Best method to move a template or VM from one virtual center server to another

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RiDDLeRThC

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So we have two virtual center servers, one in our office and one in production. The WAN link between the two sites is pretty slow (5mbps or so).

What would be the best method to get a template built on our office vcenter server up to an esx host in our production site. Seems like the export function wants to generalize the VM for VMware workstation or move it directly to the ESX host depending on the destination type.

Is the best and easiest way to just download the VM folder using the datastore browser and then move it up that way?
 
Just copy the files from the datastore to an external drive. You could export it as an OVF file but unless you are moving it between hypervisors (vSphere to Workstation..or Hyper-V, for example) then don't bother. Just copy the files off the datastore.
 
yeah this is going to suck, we move a lot of servers from our office to production. It looks to flatten the VM before copying it to the local machine.

Wish we had a faster link and I could just replicate a LUN between our AX4 and our CX4.
 
NetJunkie, does your company sell that product? I would be interested in getting a quote on it.
 
Only need to license Veeam for one host as well. As long as you always use that host to do the replication.
 
If you are running 4.1 then (temporarily) add your office hosts to your production vCenter and just drag and drop the templates from one host to another.
Alternatively RDP into your production vCenter box, use the vSphere client on that box to connect to your office vCenter, and export OVF to your production vCenter box. Then import it into your production vCenter.
 
Yeah was trying to avoid the OVF export.

I used Veeam Backup/Replication last night and was able to move a 40gb flat file,10gb used to our production esx box within 4 hours. Not too bad.

I did add the production esx box to our office vcenter server temp to do this. I didn't try it without the esx box in production in our office vcenter server.
 
yeah i talked to our dell storage rep today, he said the costs would be too high.

We just need to find a tool that does some kind of compression on the image before moving it Veeam doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of compressing during replication but it is working for what we need.
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
We just need to find a tool that does some kind of compression on the image before moving it Veeam doesn't seem to be doing much in the way of compressing during replication but it is working for what we need.
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Veeam does CBT, so after the first replication, it'll only replicate the changes. Make sure your Veeam server is running at your source location and not your destination. Also, it's better if you're replicating to an ESX box, rather then an ESXi box, so it can leverage the service console. They should have that fixed in the next major release though, so that ESXi performs as well as ESX.
 
We are running at our source location. all our esx servers are esxi not esx. that change would be pretty hard.

As for changes, we only need a solution to replicate the vm once. Pretty much just a backup of the VM here and a one time restore to it up in our data center.
 
Yeah, I keep one ESX box up and running and do all my replications to it. It's about 3 times faster, if you're just doing it once though, no reason to reconfigure everything.
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
As for changes, we only need a solution to replicate the vm once. Pretty much just a backup of the VM here and a one time restore to it up in our data center.
Click to expand...
If it's a one time thing then why not join the VM host to the appropriate vCenter server and just drag and drop. I mean that's the quickest way to get it done without to make any changes to your environment and without to buy any additional software.
 
Thuleman said:
If it's a one time thing then why not join the VM host to the appropriate vCenter server and just drag and drop. I mean that's the quickest way to get it done without to make any changes to your environment and without to buy any additional software.
Click to expand...

tried that, it timed out.
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
tried that, it timed out.
Click to expand...

As in it got going and then timed out in the middle of it or it didn't even get started?
I think it's only using port 80 and 443 so I'd assume that there shouldn't be any firewall issues, though it may use UDP on other ports, not sure how exactly the drag/drop transfer works. Maybe someone more familiar with the backend can pitch in.

Perhaps do as they do in Africa, mail pigeon with USB stick, just replace the mail pigeon with FexEx and the USB stick with an external HDD.
 
Yeah i think we have the final solution, using Veeam to do a backup of the VM, then using Feem FastSCP to xfer it to the vcenter box in our data center.

Seems to be the quickest process so far but i'm open to other ideas.

NetJunkie - I sent you a PM for our socket count. both the veeam servers would be virtual machines so i dont know how to really handle the socket count part. I have assigned the server running veeam 4 cpu's per the recommended sheet i found on their site.
 
You can use vConverter as well. It's not just for P2Vs--you can do V2V as well. (powered on or powered off)
 
Veeam is licensed by socket count from the ESX/ESXi boxes it physically connects to for the source backup or replication. If all the guests are on the same ESXi host, then you'll only need 2 sockets licensed (assuming it's a 2 socket host).
 
I'm wondering if we would see in performance increase by putting Veeam on its own Physical host with a direct connection to the SAN network.

Any thoughts?
 
RiDDLeRThC said:
I'm wondering if we would see in performance increase by putting Veeam on its own Physical host with a direct connection to the SAN network.

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

If you're replicating speed will be dependent on the link. I really doubt it's slowing down elsewhere if that link is 5Mb.
 
Doesn't Veeam recommend installing Veeam on a physical host as opposed to virtual machine?
 
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