Migrate VM from Vmware ESXi 6 to ESXi 6.5

In this post, we are going to migrate virtual machines reside on standalone Vmware ESXi 6 host to standalone Vmware ESXi 6.5 host using Veeam Quick Migration. You can perform hot migration (while VM is running) or Cold Migration (while VM is offline). During our lab testing, we realize that VM migrate faster when VM is offline. No interruption to VM when perform hot migration.

To do so, you need to have

• Vmware ESXi 6.0 Host
• Vmware ESXi 6.5 Host
• Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5 with Update 1. Update 1 is require to backup Vmware ESX 6.5. To download, click here.

Here is our infrastructure:

ESX 6.0 with few running virtual machines:

ESX 6.5 without any VM. (new setup). Starting from 6.5, Vsphere client is no longer available. to manage ESX host, you will use Vsphere Web Client (HTML 5) and access using latest web browser.

To console access a virtual machine, you can download VMRC (Vmware Remote Console)

from http://www.vmware.com/go/download-vmrc

To be safe, we recommend that you perform full backup of existing virtual machine before perform any migration.

Once done, you can start to migrate VM by using Veeam Administrator Console. Go to Virtual Machine workspace | Go to ESX Host | Right click VM | Select Quick Migration.

Note:- Make sure you've added ESXi 6.5 host into managed host.

 

 Select Target Host (ESXi 6.5) and target datastore where you would like to put them.

End result:-

Online Migration (while VM is running)

Offline Migration (while VM is offline)

Once migrated, you need to 

• Upgrade VM Compatibility to ESXi 6.5 virtual machine. This process is irreversible operation & incompatible to prior version of ESXi Host. Do this when VM is offline.
• Upgrade VM Tool

Now you've successful migrate virtual machine from ESXi 6.0 Host to ESXi 6.5 Host. Final step, is modify the backup policy & perform backup to protect the virtual machine using Veeam Backup & Replication 9.5.

Hope this help....