Migrating Existing Cluster to Nexus Dashboard

Migrating Existing Cluster to Nexus Dashboard

Starting with Release 3.2(1), Multi-Site Orchestrator must be deployed as an application in Cisco Nexus Dashboard. The previously supported VMware ESX virtual appliance and Cisco Application Services Engine form factors are now deprecated.

The following subsections describe how to migrate an existing Cisco Multi-Site Orchestrator that is deployed in VMware ESX VMs or Cisco Application Services Engine to the Cisco Nexus Dashboard.

If your MSO cluster is already deployed in Nexus Dashboard, follow the steps described in Overview instead.

Prerequisites and Guidelines

Because the new platform is vastly different in how it implements clustering and infrastructure, site management, and user management, the migration process involves parallel deployment of a new Nexus Dashboard platform and manual transfer of the current configuration database from your existing Multi-Site Orchestrator (MSO) cluster.

Before you migrate your existing cluster to Nexus Dashboard:

  • We recommend that you first familiarize yourself with the Nexus Dashboard platform and overall deployment overview and guidelines described in the Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide and the Deploying Multi-Site Orchestrator chapter of this document.

  • Ensure that your current MSO cluster is healthy.

    You will use it to create a backup of your configuration, which you will then import into the newly deployed MSO application in Nexus Dashboard.

  • Ensure that you have upgraded your fabrics to Cisco APIC, Release 4.2(4) or later.

    Site management has moved from the MSO UI to the Nexus Dashboard common site management, which supports releases 4.2(6) or later. Fabric upgrades are described in detail in Cisco APIC Installation, Upgrade, and Downgrade Guide

  • Deploy a fresh Nexus Dashboard cluster and configure fabric connectivity as described in Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide.

    If you have an existing Application Services Engine cluster with MSO application that you plan to upgrade to Nexus Dashboard, you must first disable and uninstall the MSO application running on it. Then you can upgrade the cluster to Nexus Dashboard as described in Cisco Nexus Dashboard Deployment Guide

  • Install the MSO application in your Nexus Dashboard as described in Deploying Multi-Site Orchestrator.

    If you plan to co-host multiple applications on the same Nexus Dashboard cluster, you must ensure that the cluster size is appropriately scaled based on the fabric sizes and number of applications. The Cisco Nexus Dashboard Capacity Planning tool can provide you with the required cluster size for your specific use case. If you need to extend your cluster to support the addition of MSO application, see the Cisco Nexus Dashboard User Guide for information on deploying additional worker nodes.

  • Ensure that all the sites you want to manage from your MSO application are on-boarded in the Nexus Dashboard.

    Site management has moved from the MSO UI to the Nexus Dashboard common site management. As such, you must on-board the same sites using the same names to the Nexus Dashboard GUI before migrating your existing configuration to the new cluster, as described in Adding and Deleting Sites. If sites that exist in the backup are not present in Nexus Dashboard, the restore will fail with a Pre-restore check failed error message.


    Note

    After you add the sites to the Nexus Dashboard, you must not set them to Managed in the MSO application. The sites will be enabled for management automatically when you restore your configuration from backup.

  • Ensure that all remote users you had configured in MSO are added to the Nexus Dashboard.

    User management has moved from the MSO UI to the Nexus Dashboard common user management. As such, you must add the same remote users and authentication servers to the Nexus Dashboard, as described in the Cisco Nexus Dashboard User Guide.

    Any local users you had previously configured directly in MSO will be added into the Nexus Dashboard automatically when you import the existing configuration backup.

Back Up Existing Cluster Configuration

This section describes how to back up your existing cluster configuration.

Procedure

Step 1

Backup existing deployment configuration.

  1. Log in to your existing Multi-Site Orchestrator.

  2. From the left navigation pane, select Operations > Backups & Restore.

  3. In the main window, click New Backup.

    A New Backup window opens.

  4. In the Name field, provide the name for the backup file.

    The name can contain up to 10 alphanumeric characters, but no spaces or underscores (_).

  5. Choose the Backup Location.

    You can save the backup file locally on the Orchestrator nodes or export it to a remote location. Note that if you choose to back up to a remote location, the remote location must already be configured in your MSO.

    If you want to save the backup file locally, choose Local.

    Otherwise, if you want to save the backup file to a remote location, choose Remote and provide the following:

    • From the Remote Location dropdown menu, select the remote location.

    • In the Remote Path, either leave the default target directory or you can choose to append additional subdirectories to the path. However, the directories must be under the default configured path and must have been already created on the remote server.

  6. Click Save to create the backup.

Step 2

Copy the Backup file from the existing Orchestrator.

If you created the backup using a remote location, you can skip this step.

In the main window, click the actions () icon next to the backup and select Download. This will download the backup file to your system.

Deploy New Cluster and Restore Configuration

This section describes how deploy and configure the new Nexus Dashboard cluster and the MSO application, which you will use to restore your previous configuration.

Procedure

Step 1

Disconnect the existing Multi-Site Orchestrator cluster.

We recommend preserving the existing MSO cluster until the new cluster is deployed and configuration is restored.
Step 2

Ensure that the new Nexus dashboard cluster is up and running and the MSO application is installed.

The MSO application must be a fresh install with no configuration changes to the sites or policies.
Step 3

Log in to your Nexus Dashboard GUI.
Step 4

Ensure that all the sites are on-boarded to Nexus Dashboard.

When you restore the backup, MSO will validate that every site in the backup is present in the Nexus Dashboard with matching site name and type. If validation is unsuccessful, for example if a site is not on-boarded in Nexus Dashboard, configuration restore will fail and you will need to on-board the site before retrying. On-boarding sites is described in Adding and Deleting Sites.

Step 5

Import the backup file to your new Orchestrator cluster deployed on the Nexus Dashboard.

If you saved the backup locally, simply import the file:

  1. Open your new Multi-Site Orchestrator application.

  2. From the left navigation pane, select Operations > Backups & Restore.

  3. In the main window, click Import.

  4. In the Import from file window that opens, click Select File and choose the backup file you want to import.

    Importing a backup will add it to the list of the backups displayed the Backups page.

If you saved the backup to a remote location, add the remote location to the new Multi-Site Orchestrator:

  1. Open your new Multi-Site Orchestrator application.

  2. From the left navigation pane, select Admin > Remote Locations.

  3. In the top right of the main window, click Add Remote Location.

    An Add New Remote Location screen appears.

  4. Provide the same information for the remote location that you used in your old Orchestrator.

  5. Click Save to add the remote server.

Step 6

Restore the configuration.

  1. From the left navigation menu, select Admin > Backups.

  2. In the main window, click the actions () icon next to the backup you want to restore and select Rollback to this backup.

  3. Click Yes to confirm that you want to restore the backup you selected.

    When the configuration is restored, any sites previously managed by MSO and on-boarded to the Nexus Dashboard will be enabled for MSO management in the GUI. If the configuration backup contains sites that are not on-boarded to your Nexus Dashboard, backup restore will fail with a Pre-restore check failed error and you will need to repeat the procedure after on-boarding any missing sites.

    After the configuration is imported and restored, a number of services will be restarted.