Migrate Through NSX Platform Upgrade

This section provides information and recommendations for migrating GigaVUE-VM to GigaVUE V Series when the customer is also upgrading the platform from NSX-V to NSX-T. Our GigaVUE-VM to GigaVUE V Series migration fits into the overall NSX platform upgrade. The topology remains the same during and after the migration process.

Following are the highlights of the recommended migration procedures:

  • Migrate NSX-V platform to NSX-T platform
  • You need not migrate the entire fleet of GigaVUE-VMs to GigaVUE V Series all at once. The migration can be done one host at a time or one group of hosts at a time while the rest of hosts continue to be monitored using GigaVUE-VM to minimize risk and disturbance to production environment.
  • Least interruption to the visibility of your hosts during the migration process.

In Parallel migration and In Place migration are the two approaches recommended by VMware. Refer to How to Migrate from VMware NSX for vSphere to NSX-T guide for detailed information.

In Parallel Migration from GigaVUE-VM on NSX-V to GigaVUE V Series on NSX-T

With this method, NSX-T infrastructure is deployed in parallel along with the existing NSX-V based infrastructure. While some components of NSX-V and NSX-T, such as management, could coexist, compute clusters running the workloads would be running on separate hardware.

The main advantage of this approach is its flexibility. The migration of workloads can happen over a period of time: new workloads are deployed on NSX-T and older workloads are shutdown over time.

Prerequisites

Before starting the migration ensure the following items:

  • Ensure that you have backed-up your system to recover the configuration on migration failures.
  • Ensure that your GigaVUE-FM version is 5.16.00 or above to manage both GigaVUE-VM and GigaVUE V Series based solutions.
  • Ensure that you have deployed GigaVUE-VM-based visibility solution on your NSX-V platform.
    Refer to Configure GigaVUE-VM on NSX-V chapter in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information on how to configure GigaVUE-VM visibility solution on VMware NSX-V.
  • Ensure that each of your service clusters has GigaVUE-VMs deployed using either host-based or cluster-based mode.
  • Ensure that your NSX-V connection is in stable state and you have installed NSX-T manager. This NSX-T manager is sharing the same vCenter with the NSX-V manager.
  • Ensure that your NSX-T infrastructure is up and running.
  • Ensure that the VMware's Migration Coordinator Tool is set up correctly.
  • Ensure you have installed a temporary ESXi host and configured it to be part of a cluster managed by NSX-V manager.
  • Ensure that the Gigamon service is configured on the NSX-T manager (through GigaVUE-FM)
VMware provides a Migration Coordinator Tool to assist in migrating from NSX-V to NSX-T platform. Following are the migration steps for all clusters or hosts that are not running the Gigamon service VMs.:
  • Import Configuration
  • Resolve Configuration
  • Migrate Configuration
  • Migrate Edges
  • Migrate Hosts

To migrate NSX-V to NSX-T using the In Parallel approach (one cluster at a time due to NSX-V limitation):

  1. In your vSphere Client, identify the cluster to be migrated for each host, vMotion all the VMs to the temporary host(s).

  2. In GigaVUE-FM, configure a GigaVUE-VM solution to the cluster of the temporary host. Refer to Integrate GigaVUE-VM with NSX-V topic in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information.

  3. In your vSphere Client, remove the existing GigaVUE-VM from the cluster. Refer to Step 3: Delete Traffic Visibility Service from NSX-V topic in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guidefor detailed information.

  4. In your vSphere Client, navigate to Networking & Security > Installation and Upgrade > Host Preparation. Select the NSX-V host from the cluster, and click Actions > Uninstall to uninstall NSX-V software from cluster.

  5. In your vSphere Client, add the same host to NSX-T cluster.

  6. In GigaVUE-FM, configure a host-based GigaVUE V Series visibility solution on your NSX-T with the same cluster.

    1. Create a monitoring domain with the same cluster. Refer to Create Monitoring Domain for VMware NSX-T topic in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide topic for detailed information.
    2. Create a monitoring session with specification matching the same traffic policy configured on the GigaVUE-VM solution and click Deploy. Refer to Configure Monitoring Session topic in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information.

  7. vMotion all your VMs from the temporary host to the newly migrated host.

  8. Remove GigaVUE-VM on the temporary host.

After migrating the first host. Repeat the step 4 to step 6 to migrate all other hosts, and the following occurs automatically:
  • NSX-T manager deploys the GigaVUE V Series node on the migrated new host and added to the NSX-T manager.
  • GigaVUE-FM deploys the monitoring session to the new GigaVUE V Series node.

Once all hosts are successfully migrated to NSX-T, Remove Security Policy, vMap and unregister GigaVUE-VM-based service from the NSX-V platform. Refer to Remove Gigamon Service from NSX-V and GigaVUE‑FM topic in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information.

In Place Migration from GigaVUE-VM on NSX-V to GigaVUE V Series on NSX-T

Another approach to migrating over to NSX-T is using the NSX-T’s built in Migration Coordinator tool. The Migration Coordinator tool, available since the 2.4 release of NSX-T, helps in replacing NSX-V with NSX-T. This tool also imports the existing configuration to apply on the new NSX-T based infrastructure.

The Migration Coordinator tool also supports Maintenance Mode, that allows automatic placement of ESXi host into maintenance mode and vMotion VMs off from the host.

Prerequisites

Before starting the migration ensure the following items:

  • Ensure that you have backed-up your system to recover the configuration on migration failures.
  • Ensure that your GigaVUE-FM version is 5.16.00 or above to manage both GigaVUE-VM and GigaVUE V Series based solutions.
  • Ensure that you have deployed GigaVUE-VM-based visibility solution on your NSX-V platform.
    Refer to Configure GigaVUE-VM on NSX-V chapter in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information on how to configure GigaVUE-VM visibility solution on VMware NSX-V.
  • Ensure that your NSX-V connection is in stable state and you have installed NSX-T manager. This NSX-T manager is sharing the same vCenter with the NSX-V manager.
  • Ensure that your NSX-T infrastructure is up and running.
  • Ensure that the VMware's Migration Coordinator Tool is set up correctly.
  • Ensure that the Gigamon service is configured on the NSX-T manager (through GigaVUE-FM)
VMware provides a Migration Coordinator Tool to assist in migrating from NSX-V to NSX-T platform. Following are the migration steps for all clusters or hosts that are not running the Gigamon service VMs.:
  • Import Configuration
  • Resolve Configuration
  • Migrate Configuration
  • Migrate Edges
  • Migrate Hosts

To migrate NSX-V to NSX-T using the In Place approach:

  1. Undeploy GigaVUE-VM from the host to migrate.
  2. Convert the host from NSX-V to NSX-T using MCT. Refer to "Migration Coordinator Tool" section in the How to Migrate from VMware NSX for vSphere to NSX-T guide for detailed information.
  3. In GigaVUE-FM, configure a host-based GigaVUE V Series visibility solution on your NSX-T with the same cluster.
    1. Create a monitoring domain with the same cluster. Refer to Create Monitoring Domain for VMware NSX-T chapter in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information.
    2. Create a monitoring session with specification matching the same traffic policy configured on the GigaVUE-VM solution and click Deploy. Refer to Configure Monitoring Session in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide for detailed information.

Once all the hosts are successfully migrated to NSX-T, unregister the GigaVUE-VM-based service from NSX-V platform. Refer to Remove Gigamon Service from NSX-V and GigaVUE‑FM in the GigaVUE Cloud Suite for VMware—GigaVUE V Series Guide topic for detailed information.