Vcenter Server appliance (VCSA) upgrade

[roelvs]

In our vsphere setup, a vcenter server appliance (v5.0, using the internal db) is in place for a few months, and this has been working very well until recently. Now this server isn't stable enough anymore, the connection gets lost every few hours requiring a reboot of this appliance. We tried to drill down in the logs to find and fix the problem, but without success.

Another definitive solution would be to migrate this vcsa to another vcsa or any other vcenter server, but I can't find any documentation on how to do this.

Is there a migration path from one VCSA to another VCSA? In the migration tab on the management website on the current VCSA, it is only possible to chose 'source'.

[dan13476]

If you're just looking to migrate the contents of your embedded db to a new vcsa you could try looking at the Inventory snapshot tool for PowerCLI to do it for you.

http://labs.vmware.com/flings/inventorysnapshot

[roelvs]

@dan13476 thank you for your helpfulsuggestion.

Would this fling be sufficient as a 'backup tool' if there is a vcloud director instance connected to the vcenter?

[roelvs]

just to help other users with the same problem: an instable vcsa server with internal DB: have a look at the database tables. A migration (the original question in this thread) to another vcsa didn't work out, but we found and repaired the actual problem in VCSA...

This article: http://blog.allanglesit.com/2012/02/vcenter-vpxd-crash/ describes a common problem with the internal DB: some tables got too big (11000000 rows), resulting in vpxd crashes. Some manual db queries can help you in this case.

a short description of the problem can be found at http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1021581

[Totie]

I agree with roelvs.  I used that same fix on 3 of my VCSA.  I blogged about it here:

http://toti3.wordpress.com/2012/02/21/vcent-appliance-5-0-and-service-stopping-issue/

[adelisa]

Hi roelvs,

Welcoem to the community.

you can do that through OVF improt and export.

" Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion."