UPDATED 01:44 EDT / SEPTEMBER 19 2016

NEWS

VMware updates vSphere to simplify vCenter Server migration

VMware Inc. has introduced a “vCenter Server for Windows to vCenter Server Appliance” migration tool in its latest update to vSphere.

The focus of vSphere 6.0 Update 2m is on making it easier to migrate from one vCenter Server to another, something that’s traditionally always been a very complicated undertaking, as Emad Younis, senior technical marketing engineer of VMware’s Cloud Platform Business Unit, explained in a blog post.

The issue is that VMware offers two flavors of vCenter – vCenter Server for Windows (for running on Microsoft’s operating system) and the vCenter Server Appliance for Linux-based platforms, and they’re quite different beasts. Because the vCenter Server Appliance is an appliance, it doesn’t require any operating system license to run. It also doesn’t need a database, because the vPostgres database is baked inside it. With the Windows version however, users need a Windows license, and they also need to run either an SQL Server or Oracle database alongside it, and Oracle the company is not known for being friendly towards those that want to virtualize its products.

In addition, as VMware’s Younis points out, neither Windows, SQL Server nor Oracle are available for free, which means there’s big savings to be had if you opt for the vCenter Server Appliance instead of vCenter Server for Windows.

All of these are great reasons to want to migrate from the Windows version to the Linux-friendly appliance, and so it’s no surprise to learn that VMware’s customers have apparently been begging for just such a migration tool. In his blog post, Younis points out that the new converter began life as a “Fling”, which are tools the company releases without any support. So popular was it that VMware decided to make it an official, supported product in vSphere 6.0 Update 2m.

And so, very simply, the new “vCenter Server for Windows to vCenter Server Appliance” migration tool allows you to take your Windows setup and quickly migrate it to a Linux setup, with all of your data transferred into a vPostgres database, in just a few clicks.

Image credit: v_ac_md via flickr.com

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