This document describes the functional capacity for migrations using vSphere Replication (vSR) Bulk and Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) in HCX.
The supported scale numbers are referenced per HCX Manager, irrespective of the number of Site Pairings or Service Mesh/IX Appliances deployed.
A configuration guide is provided within this document to increase the scale of concurrent Bulk/RAV migrations per HCX Manager beyond the default value for HCX Manager systems running HCX software version 4.10 or higher. For HCX Manager systems running HCX version 4.7 to 4.9 the configuration guide procedure is documented in Knowledge Article 321604 "HCX - Bulk Migration & Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) scalability guide - for HCX version 4.7 to 4.9".
There are several factors, at both source & target HCX Manager, that can limit the number of concurrent migrations performed using Bulk & RAV (initial/delta sync):
Note: HCX Transport Analytics functionality can be used to measure network infrastructure throughput during migration planning phase. Refer Broadcom HCX user guide.
vCPU |
RAM (GB) |
Disk Size (GB) |
Concurrent Bulk/Rav Migrations per HCX Manager |
4 |
12 |
64 |
300 |
The supported numbers for concurrent Bulk/RAV migrations per Baseline HCX Manager deployments are:
The following configuration guide is provided to increase the scale of concurrent Bulk/RAV migrations per HCX Manager beyond the default value for HCX Manager systems running HCX version 4.10 or higher. For HCX Manager systems running HCX version 4.7 to 4.9 the configuration guide procedure is documented in Knowledge Article 321604 "HCX - Bulk Migration & Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) scalability guide - for HCX version 4.7 to 4.9".
HCX Manager software version 4.10 or newer provides configuration settings for increased scale of concurrent Bulk/RAV migrations based on default, medium, and large size settings on each HCX Manager. These form factors include pre-defined settings for disk space, memory allocation for the app-engine software process and the number of threads for different sizes of migrations.
The supported scale numbers are referenced per HCX Manager, irrespective of the number of Site Pairings or Service Mesh/IX Appliances deployed.
Scale Form factor |
vCPU count |
Memory in GB |
Storage in GB |
Concurrent Bulk/Rav Migrations per HCX Manager |
Default |
4 |
12 |
64 |
300 |
Medium |
8 |
24 |
120 |
600 |
Large |
16 |
48 |
300 |
1000 |
Case 1: HCX Manager upgraded from 4.7-4.9 to 4.10.0.0 where the HCX version 4.7 to 4.9 upscale procedure documented inKnowledge Article 321604 "HCX - Bulk Migration & Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) scalability guide - for HCX version 4.7 to 4.9" was not applied previously.
Case 2: HCX Manager upgraded from 4.7-4.9 to 4.10.0.0 where the HCX version 4.7 to 4.9 upscale procedure documented in Knowledge Article 321604 "HCX - Bulk Migration & Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) scalability guide - for HCX version 4.7 to 4.9" was applied previously
Case 3: HCX Manager is newly deployed with default scale form factor
Case 4: HCX Manager is upgraded from 4.10.0.0 to 4.10+ with scale form factor not applied
Case 5: HCX Manager is upgraded from 4.10.0.0 to 4.10+ with scale form factor applied
The following steps should be performed based on the matching use case from the previous section of this guide.
The steps should be performed on both the HCX Connector Manager VM & HCX Cloud Manager VM running HCX software version 4.10 or higher.
Scale Form factor |
vCPU count |
Memory in GB |
Storage in GB |
Concurrent Bulk/Rav Migrations per HCX Manager |
Default |
4 |
12 |
64 |
300 |
Medium |
8 |
24 |
120 |
600 |
Large |
16 |
48 |
300 |
1000 |
Procedure to increase resources on the HCX Connector/Cloud Manager
The following procedure must be used to increase resource allocation on both the HCX Connector Manager VM & HCX Cloud Manager VM.
Requirements and Considerations before increasing resources on the HCX Connector & Cloud Manager
Procedure
IMPORTANT: If your HCX Managers are falling into Case 2 of Scenarios of Upscale Configuration then this Section A) can be skipped.
IMPORTANT: It is recommended to take snapshots for HCX Connector & Cloud Manager VMs prior to executing steps.
Step 1: Increase the vCPU and memory of HCX Manager to match the desired scale factor in the above table:
Step 2: Add a 120GB or 300GB Storage disk to HCX Connector & Cloud Manager based on the desired scale factor in the above table and then increase the common disk partition size. For HCX Managers with previously modified 300GB disk settings from Knowledge Article 321604 "HCX - Bulk Migration & Replication Assisted vMotion (RAV) scalability guide - for HCX version 4.7 to 4.9" steps are still required to increase the common disk partition size.
Refer to Knowledge Article 373238 "HCX - Increasing HCX Manager Disk Space for HCX Software Version 4.10 or Higher" for the procedure.
Step 1: Login to HCX Manager SSH Console using 'admin' user.
Step 2: Switch to 'root' user.
Step 3: Change directory to '/usr/local/hcx/sbin'.
Step 4: Execute upscale_configs.sh using below command (the app-engine software process will be automatically restarted).
sh upscale_configs.sh medium
OR
sh upscale_configs.sh large
Step 5: Wait until the app-engine software process restarts completely before attempting to access the HCX UI to perform operations.
systemctl status app-engine
Step 6: To confirm the scale setting of medium or large use the below command.
cat /common/scale-form-factor
NOTE These steps are only required for HCX Manager systems that were previously scaled-up prior to the upgrade
- Before upgrade with scale settings implemented:
root@hcx [ /common_ext ]# ls -l | grep postgres
drwx------ 19 postgres postgres 4096 Oct 31 11:33 postgres-db
- After upgrade on the same system:
root@hcx [ /common_ext ]# ls -l
drwx------ 19 1001 appmgmt 4096 Oct 31 11:33 postgres-db
NOTE: User (1001) and group (appmgmt) mappings are arbitrary
- Change the ownership and group for the postgres-db
root@hcx [ /common_ext ]# chown -R postgres:postgres postgres-db
root@hcx [ /common_ext ]# ls -l
drwx------ 19 postgres postgres 4096 Oct 31 12:41 postgres-db
Note: In such cases, the recommendation is to relocate the source VM compute resources to another ESXi host probably a free one using native vCenter vMotion. This action won't impact ongoing replication process and do not require any changes in the migration workflow.
Refer to HCX Configuration Limits.
Refer to Network Underlay Characterization for more information about HCX dependencies on the network infrastructure between sites.
Refer to HCX Bulk Migration Operations & Best Practices.
Contact your Cloud Provider regarding the availability of this procedure to scale up your cloud Data Center.
For Scale up requirements on VMConAWS Cloud, please open a service request with the Broadcom Support team.