How to migrate to new hosts with different network topology

[llamavm]

Hi,

We have an existing vSphere cluster with 2 hosts and 4 distributed switches. These distributed switches are connected to a combination of legacy 1G and 10G switches.

We have three new hosts that will be used to replace the above. In migrating to the new hardware I would like to simplify the environment and have a single distributed switch that utilises 25G network connections on the new hosts. All of the VLANs available to the existing hosts are available on the new 25G network switches.

My plan was to add a new host to the cluster, migrate VMs to it and then remove the old hosts to free up licenses for the other two new hosts.

Looking at the KBs, I can see that one path could be to disable the distributed switches, migrate the VMs to standard switches on the new hosts and then create new distributed switches. Is this the best path? I could potentially install 25G network adaptors to the legacy hosts, however I would prefer to avoid having to shutdown the hosts if possible?

I appreciate any suggestions on how to proceed.

Running vSphere server appliance 6.5.0 and ESXi 6.5.0

Thanks,

Carl.

[RajeevVCP4 · Accepted solution]

If you have two 2 host then it will be easy

Take backup of DVS

create standard switch/port and add any free NIC

Migrate DVS to standard

Delete existing DVS

add new host in cluster on standard switch  and created new DVS

create port group on DVS according to your setup

Add host first and see all is fine

then migrate VM from SVS to DVS.

[llamavm]

Thanks Rajeev, I'll give that a go.