Steps PSC Converge to vCenter in GUI(vSphere 6.7)

 

Convergence is the process of reconfiguring or converting a vCenter Server instance with an external Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Server instance with an embedded Platform Services Controller.

Convergence Internal Workflow illustrates the process of converging a single standalone vCenter Server with an external Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Server with an embedded Platform Services Controller.

Check vCenter is standalone or linked vCenter, plan accordingly to perform vCenter Converge.

In Case of Linked vCenter, This testing is performed on vCenter 6.7

Example

Linked List of vCenter and PSC

vCenter1

vCenter2

vCenter3

vCenter4

vCenter5

PSC1

PSC2

PSC3

PSC1 mapped to vCenter 1 and vCenter2, PSC2 Mapped to vCenter3 and vCenter4 and PSC3 mapped to vCenter5 

Each PSC mapped to 2 vCenter, last PSC mapped to 1 vCenter

Take Backup of vCenter 

Check all PSC and vCenter are in same version, if there version mismatch. make all component version identical.

Download Current vCenter ISO

Go to vCenter1 VM, Attached vCenter ISO and check CDROM is showing connected. Also Check, Connect and Connect at Power On is checked

Take Putty of vCenter1 and run following command

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

You should see below mentioned output

root@vcenter1 [ ~ ]# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

mount: /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

root@vcenter1 [ ~ ]#

Login to vCenter6 Web Client, we are taking vCenter6 because during vCenter1 Converge there will be downtime and we will not able to monitor live status. samewsie, when we will converge vCenter5, we will take vCenter1 web Client to initiate task and monitoring status.

Once Login in to vCenter5, Go to Administration and under deployment, click on "System Configuration"

you should see list of vCenter and PSC.

In this case we will see 5 vCenter and 3 PSC

Select First vCenter(vCenter1) and expand it. you should see login button. 

Click on it, it will open VAMI page of vCenter. Login on vCenter with root credentials.

Check all health Status are healthy. 

Select vCenter(vCenter1) and Click on Converge to embedded

It will ask to confirm vCenter downtime in this embedded action, Click proceed to continue

To Converge vCenter, we need to provide administrator SSO username(administrator@vsphere.local) and password 

vCenter replication partner should be ring topology. we will explain this later. In simple term, it should early vCenter FQDN.

Skip AD Join

Tick mark on "I acknowledge ..."

Click on Converge

Stage of Converge will start showing 

Repeat the same on other vCenter.

 

Once all vCenter completed  you will see as this screenshot

Next Step is decommission PSC, Before performing PSC Decommission ensure you remote all binding with PSC. for example NSX manager will get integrated with PSC and vCenter remove both integration. After PSC Decommission, integrate credentials again. else account will get lock. 

Lets start with PSC Decommission.  Select First PSC and Click on Decommission PSC

Click proceed to continue

Click on VIEW THUMBPRINT

It will display Thumbprint, Enter SSO Credentials(administrator@vsphere.local).

Tick on " I acknowledge ... "

Click on "Decommission" to start 

You should see status of PSC decommission, This will take some time.

wait for status to complete

Once Completed, it will unregister PSC

Once it's completed, Continue Decommission of remaining PSC. you should see only vCenter with Embedded 

vCenter Ring Topology

vCenter1> vCenter5 and vCenter2

vCenter2> vCenter1 and vCenter3

vCenter3> vCenter2 and vCenter4

vCenter4> vCenter3 and vCenter5

vCenter5> vCenter4 and vCenter1

vCenter1 will have only one vCenter replication, we need to manually add vCenter5

Check Replication status vCenter2 to vCenter5

Command to check replication vCenter

/usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcrepadmin -f showpartners -h localhost -u administrator

Command to add replication vCenter

/usr/lib/vmware-vmdir/bin/vdcrepadmin -f createagreement -2 -h localhost -H vCenter5 -u administrator