VMware Migrations with VCDA

For customers using Liquid Web’s VMware Multi-Tenant product, VMware’s Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) utility can be used to migrate Virtual Machines (VMs) from an external provider to Liquid Web. Given the nature of migrations using VCDA, Liquid Web can only assist with facilitating the migration. The actual act of migrating the server with VCDA is done by the customer.

For customers using Liquid Web’s VMware Multi-Tenant product, VMware’s Cloud Director Availability (VCDA) utility can be used to migrate Virtual Machines (VMs) from an external provider to Liquid Web. Given the nature of migrations using VCDA, Liquid Web can only assist with facilitating the migration. The actual act of migrating the server with VCDA is done by the customer.

While VCDA can be used to migrate many types of servers, these migrations are limited to self-managed servers only. We can still support Fully Managed migrations on VMware, however those migrations would not utilize VCDA. See our article on VMware Migration Examples for more details.

VCDA Migration Steps

This article assumes the reader has already placed an order for Multitenant Hosting on our VMware Cloud Platform. During the order process, be sure to let our sales team know that you would like to migrate an existing server with VCDA. If you haven’t already, reach out to our sales team today to get this process started.

Step 1: Install VCDA

The first step is to install and configure VCDA on the source environment. This may be an on-premises deployment, or it could be with a different hosting provider. In some cases VCDA may already be installed for you; check with your existing provider or IT team to confirm. For installation steps – please refer to VMware’s documentation on VCDA.

Step 2: Pair VCDA Appliances

At Liquid Web, we already have VCDA installed on our VMware Multi-Tenant Cloud. The next step after installation will be to pair your VCDA appliance with Liquid Web’s VCDA. During the deployment phase, we will provide you with some of the key details needed to pair the VCDA appliances. Those details will include:

Destination VCDA endpoint: https://vcda.lan3.lwinternal.com
VMware Organization Administration user: Will be provided to you by the Liquid Web team via a one time secure note on your account.

Step 3: Perform Initial Migration and Test

At this point, you may begin migrating your server(s) with VCDA. We recommend you utilize the “test” feature of VCDA to test and troubleshoot any issues once your server is copied to Liquid Web. The Liquid Web team will also provide you with networking information to configure the new IP addresses on your server at Liquid Web.

After the initial Migration, you may access the migrated server via the console in vCenter.

Step 4: Finalize the Migration

After testing has concluded, you can finalize the migration within VCDA. At this point, the Liquid Web team will perform a few finishing touches on your account to activate the newly migrated server.