Process to Migrate or vMotion NSX Edge Appliance or DLR Control VM

Products

• VMware NSX

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:

In order to "migrate" the Edge VM, redeploy it through the NSX Manager plugin in the vSphere Web Client.

You can choose to redeploy it to a different datacenter/host/cluster or resource pool/datastore within this view.

This is the preferred migration process, as it keeps NSX Manager aware of the appliance change.

If you vMotion the Edge like a normal VM, future redeploys of the edge will revert back to its configuration in NSX. Thus, a normal vMotion of the Edge is never permanent until original configuration (in the NSX view) is modified.

Note: Redeploying the Edge in this way will impact traffic for a few seconds. Nevertheless, this is the cleanest way to migrate an Edge.

Environment

VMware NSX for vSphere 6.4.x
VMware NSX for vSphere 6.2.x
VMware NSX for vSphere 6.3.x

Resolution

Here are the steps:

1. Navigate to the Networking and Security Plugin in the vSphere Web Client.
2. Click on the "NSX Edges" section.
3. Double-click the Edge you are looking to migrate.
4. Go to the "Manage" tab and click on "Configuration".

    Note: To navigate using the HTML5 Web Client, go to the "Configure" tab > Appliance Settings > "Edge Appliance VMs" > Select Appliance and Click on Edit.

5. Scroll down to "NSX Edge Appliances." This represents the Edge VM itself.
6. Highlight the Edge Appliance and click the Edit Pencil button.

7. From the "Edit NSX Edge Appliance" Dialogue Box, choose the new location for the VM (Datacenter, Cluster, Datastore, Host, or Folder)

8. Click OK, and the VM begins redeploying in the new location. Once it comes up, traffic will be redirected to the new location.

The above method is the preferred process for migrating an Edge. However, if a manual migration is required, you can use 1 of the 2 workarounds:

• Use the VMware vSphere Client to migrate the Edge or DLR Control VM. For more information, see the VMware vSphere PowerCLI User's Guide.
• Use the PowerCLI command-let Move-VM.

For Example:

Connect-ViServer vCenter_Server_fqdn_or_ip
Move-VM -VM vmname -Destination host_fqdn_or_ip

For more information, see the VMware vSphere PowerCLI User's Guide.