Changing my SC network

[RWY33Right]

I'm looking for help moving my ESX hosts to a new network. What I can do is disable HA for the amount of time it takes me to move them all over one at a time and reconfigure them from the console. However, I'm hoping there is a better way that will limit, or possibly even eliminate, the amount of time I spend without HA enabled.

Thus far, I have been able to add a second SC switch and communicate with the SC across it. If I do this for each of my hosts, should I be able to just modify the default gateway on each host, limiting the amount of time I spend without HA?

Please let me know if you have any thoughts on this. Worse case scenario, I can move them one at a time and use the console to update the IP configuration, but agian, that will take the better part of a day and I'll be without HA.

Thank you.

Bart

[Andr3201110141]

Have a look at this article. Hope it helps

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=430949...

[RWY33Right]

Thanks for the reply, Andr. That gives the command line part of it, but I'm looking for a strategy for migrating the hosts without disabling HA for an extended period of time.

Thanks again.

Bart

[depping]

Why not just place the host in maintenance mode, do the task and take it out of maintenance mode? That way the risk is much lower.

[RWY33Right]

Thanks for the reply, Duncan, and before I forget, thanks for the 4.1 HA and DRS Deep Dive (Kindle Edition, I might add) - it's been a daily read as I'm trying to figure out the best way to do this.

I did post my question as though I am trying to change the oil on an engine while it's running, but that's not the case. I will be taking full advantage of Maintenance Mode.

Where I'm struggling is when I move the host over to the new network, HA fails to configure. I have deteremined this to be because of the broadcasts used in HA. I can still VMotion, but during the migration, my HA will need non-functional or at least well beyond what I've planned for.

After a week of Diving Deep, I am looking at the das.IsolationAddress1 (forgive my spelling if I got that wrong - I won't when it counts) and trunking two uplinks for the two separate networks. Two port groups with tags. I'll play around with the default gateway to see if I can get HA to configure.

I have also considered adding a new cluster and moving the hosts and then VMs over to it one at a time.

Thanks again for the reply. When this is all over, we'll be moving to 5 and then I get to buy another book. :smileygrin:

Bart

[RWY33Right]

I found a solution to my delimna - das.allowNetwork allows me to connect all of my hosts to both networks and then cutover in just a few minutes, limiting my time spent not covered by HA.