ESXi host migration Licensing

[MihirP]

Hello,

We have 3 vSphere envrionments

We are planning to migrate hosts of 2 environments to 3rd environment.

So it will be like connect to 1 vCenter server and here there will be 3 clusters (migrated hosts).

Now how will the licensing work. Will the host license be taken care when hosts is reconnected. Or need to manually enter it after reconnections

Thanks,

Mihir

[abhilashhb]

When you are adding the host, one step is to enter the license for the host. So you can enter the key then.

See this link Knowledge Base | VMWare Knowledge HUB

[MihirP]

We have 3 dual core hosts and vSphere 5 Enterprise plus for 6 CPUs. So all license are used.

So will it be showing license count in "Available" section, as we have not removed license when removed the host?

[abhilashhb]

The license usually comes along with the host. So you better remove it on the older vCenter and add all the licenses to your 3rd vcenter.

[MihirP]

Could you please let me know how to remove it, thanks.

[abhilashhb]

Do this.

Go to your first and second vCenter and Disconnect all the hosts and remove it.

Copy the licenses.

Come to your third vcenter and Go to Home--->Licensing.

Right Click and choose manage vSphere licenses and add a new license.

Once you do this add the new hosts and this key will show up during the addition of hosts.

Select it and add the host with it.

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[MihirP]

Perfect!, thanks .

One last question related to this;

Will have to create a New cluster while connecting to vcenterA  > Mirgate 3 hosts from vcenterB to this new cluster (as you wrote above)

vCenterB is holding database for these 3 hosts and its vms. But when we will create new cluster on vCenterA then this cluster information will be held in database on vCenterA server.

And same thing will apply to the third environment, its information is there on its vCenterC, but its cluster information will be on database of vCenterA.

So it will be like configuration information of same environment will be held in two database;

                New Cluster Information on vCenter01 server

                Hosts and VM information on vCenter02 server

Am I right? If yes, then is it ok to proceed with this?

Thanks.

[abhilashhb]

This is how it works. When you add a host to a vCenter, All the host and VM related(Inventory) details will be held in its database.

Once you remove it all these details will go.

That mentioned, If you have a single vcenter and add all the 3 environments' hosts into it. All the database inventory will be on the vCenter DB which hosts all the hosts. So you do not have to worry about it.

One more point to consider is, If you have resource pools and vApps configured in the previous vCenter, you will lose that info as RP's and vApps are created at vcenter level and not at host level. Better note down the details of which VM belongs to which vApp or RP so that you can recreate it.

[MihirP]

We dont have vApps and RP's, so no issue in that.

But now I am confused on database part.

Below is the config;

vCenterA > 3 Hosts & 50 VMs > vCenterA sql express database

     vCenterA server residing on host of vCenterB

vCenterB > 5 Hosts & 100 VMs > vCenterB sql express database

     vCenterB server residing on its own hosts

vCenterC > 3 Hosts & 50 VMs > vCenterC sql express database

     vCenterC server residing on its own hosts

You said "Once you remove it all these details will go." --> Which details will go?

After removing vCenterB hosts, vCenterB database on vcenterB server will be of no use or not required any more?

Same for vCenterC database also?

So now for all the information of 2 migrated environments will now be held on vCenterA database?

[abhilashhb · Accepted solution]

Yes once migrated the vCenter A's DB will have details of

11 Hosts and 200 VM's.

After disconnecting and removing the hosts you can discard the previous vCenter servers and their DB's. Yes they wont be required anymore( i.e B and C)

As you are creating all the clusters of one vCenter, all the inventory will be present in its DB.

But i would suggest you to go with a standard SQL server than express because SQL express has limitations on the number or hosts and VM's it can hold.

Or better thing to would be to deploy a vCenter server appliance. The 5.5 version wil support upto 300 hosts and 3000 VM's with its embedded DB.

[MihirP]

Thanks very much, appreciate your help.