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Impact of VCSA name change post vCenter upgrade?

A
Userlevel 3

Hi,

 

We’re going to upgrade our vCenter to 8.0U1 and the process as far as we can tell involves creating a new vCenter with the same IP but different hostname (i.e. I can’t find an upgrade process that retains the same name for the vCenter).

 

Just wondering what the impact of that name change would be to our existing Veeam backup jobs if they are all set to contact the vCenter on the old name.

 

I’ve tried searching the community for “VCSA name change” and “vCenter name change” but have come up empty. Has no one else found this to be a problem? Or did we miss something and there is a way to retain the old vCenter hostname?

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Best answer by MicoolPaul 28 December 2023, 20:47

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coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I believe all you should have to do is go to Managed Servers and go into your vCenter properties and go through the wizard changing the name to the new name. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

As I share with anyone, I suggest creating a small test environment to test this. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
JMeixner
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

You can change the name in Veeam

Rescan the vCenter in Veeam and you should be fine.

 

But you have to set the same user/password on the vCenter oder adjust them in Veeam.

Jochen (Joe) Meixner | Veeam Vanguard 2024 | Veeam Legend 2021 - 2023 | Veeam Certified Architect (VMCA) 2022 | Twitter: @JoMeix | BlueSky: @jmeixner.bsky.social
A
Userlevel 3

Thank you for the quick reply @coolsport00 . However, I can’t find the wizard to change the name. I can change credentials for the existing vCenter but no way to change the hostname.

A
Userlevel 3

@JMeixner oh thanks. Yes, we definitely can re-scan and the the same creds are being used. We’ll give that a go, otherwise I guess we can always power down the new vCenter and power the old one back up and it should work? At least that’s the “back-out” plan from the VCSA installer.

 

Cheers!

coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Ah ok...so the Properties wizard won't allow the name to be changed. I couldn't verify as I'm away from my laptop atm. 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
coolsport00
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I forgot about this post by Wolff. Good reshare Joe! 

Shane Williford - Veeam VMCA/VMCE | Veeam Legend | VUG Leader | VCP-DCV | Twitter: @coolsport00
MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

Just to add, unless you’re doing a specific custom upgrade path, the default path is to allocate a temporary IP address to the new VCSA to read data from the old one, then it powers down the old VCSA, and the new one restarts with the VCSA FQDN and IP address of the old one, no name changes necessary.

Michael Paul - #VeeamLegend | #VeeamVanguard | Veeam Certified Architect | VMware vExpert | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.bsky.social
A
Userlevel 3

@MicoolPaul really? That’s a bit confusing. The installer screen did mention the temporary IP but it also asked for a new name for the VCSA that’s why I thought it would change the FQDN. I’m guessing that what’s really happening then is that the “label” shown in the VCSA would change to whatever I gave it (a very unimaginative VCSA80 to indicate the version) but ti would still have myVCSA.domain.local as it’s FQDN and therefore would not really affect the backup jobs since they do look for myVCSA.domain.local.

 

Cool! One learns something new everyday :-)

Chris.Childerhose
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@MicoolPaulreally? That’s a bit confusing. The installer screen did mention the temporary IP but it also asked for a new name for the VCSA that’s why I thought it would change the FQDN. I’m guessing that what’s really happening then is that the “label” shown in the VCSA would change to whatever I gave it (a very unimaginative VCSA80 to indicate the version) but ti would still have myVCSA.domain.local as it’s FQDN and therefore would not really affect the backup jobs since they do look for myVCSA.domain.local.

 

Cool! One learns something new everyday :-)

That new name is a temporary name for the upgrade it will change it back to your current VCSA FQDN/IP once completed.

Chris Childerhose - VMCA2022 | VMCE2023 | Veeam Vanguard 7* | Veeam Legend 3* | vExpert 5* | VCAP-DCV/VCP-DCV | Object First Ace | Cisco Champion | Twitter: @cchilderhose | Blog Site – https://just-virtualization.tech
MicoolPaul
Userlevel 7
Badge +20

@afn24805 can you share a screenshot please? 🙂

Michael Paul - #VeeamLegend | #VeeamVanguard | Veeam Certified Architect | VMware vExpert | https://micoolpaul.com | Twitter: @MicoolPaul | Mastodon: @micoolpaul@masto.nu | Bluesky: @micoolpaul.bsky.social
A
Userlevel 3

@MicoolPaul screenshot of the window where they ask for the name? I am already in Stage 2 so I don’t think it’ll be possible but I’ll see if I can find one online.

A
Userlevel 3

Found some in this article: https://masteringvmware.com/how-to-upgrade-vcenter-server-7-to-vcenter-server-8-step-by-step/

 

The screenshot under Step 9 of this article is what I was referring to. We use the hostname as the “VM Name” and caused the confusion/concern on my part. That is actually just the label that is shown under the list of VMs in vCenter and NOT the FQDN.

 

The screenshot under Step 19 once in Stage 2 confirms what @MicoolPaul and @Chris.Childerhose were saying.

dloseke
Userlevel 7
Badge +6

Just to add, unless you’re doing a specific custom upgrade path, the default path is to allocate a temporary IP address to the new VCSA to read data from the old one, then it powers down the old VCSA, and the new one restarts with the VCSA FQDN and IP address of the old one, no name changes necessary.

This….I’ve never changed a vCenter name when doing an upgrade.  The only time I would consider this is when the vcenter name (FQDN, not the VM container name) is no longer desired, such as if someone decided to call the vcenter “vcenter6” and you’re upgrading to v7 or v8 or whatever.  But generally speaking, there’s not need to change the name.

Derek M. Loseke, Senior Systems Engineer | Veeam Legend 2022-2023 | VMSP/VMTSP | VCP6-DCV | VSP/VTSP | CCNA | https://technotesanddadjokes.com | @dloseke

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