One of our customers has an old ESX 3.5 server that's developed a problem. The main issue of the 3.5 server is that it keeps disconnecting from the VC server. Connecting the vSphere client direct to the 3.5 server is successful, but it constantly fails to list running VM's. Investigation reveals DNS issues can cause problems with getting a Host connected to a VC server, so we've investigated this and DNS is all fine, as are the hosts files on the host(s).
However, the customer has decided they want to put ESXi4 on the server, to match another ESXi4 server they have, rather than fixing the above problem.
(Maybe I can talk them into updating to ESXi5 later on.. Hopefully, there's an easy upgrade path from ESXi 4 to ESXi 5).
They want our assistance with this upgrade to ESXi4, but I am unsure if we install ESXi4 over the top of ESX 3.5 what the outcome would be? I'm guessing that the VMFS would be preserved and that we'd need to manually add the VM's to the Host, but I'm unsure how this would be achieved.
Can anyone advise of any potential pitfalls and how to add the VM's to the host after the install of ESXi4 ?
Thanks in advance.
Paul
