Is it OK to move ESX3.5 VMs to a new ESX4.0 Host?

[russkiel]

hi everyone.

First, i can't tell you how invaluable these discussions have been for me over the years, thank you so much to everyone that's ever participated.

Second, my question is a simple one, i think. i have 12 ESX 3.5 hosts around my firm. I have started on a hardware upgrade path replacing the Dell servers with beefier units, installing ESX 4.0 and intending to move the VMs created on the 3.5 hosts to the new 4.0 hosts.

Can anyone see an issue with this? I did a test by adding a 4.0 host to a cluster containing a 3.5 host, I "cloned" an existing VM and moved it to the new 4.0. In fact, I moved three of them, a file server, a domain controller and a print server.

I seem to feel that some of the performance has decreased when browsing any one of those servers as a user and it dawned on me to worry about it.

Is that a no-no? Moving 3.5 VMs to a 4.0 Host?

Thanks again.

Sincerely,

Russ

[amvmware]

No it is perfectly Ok - you need to upgrade the hardware from v4 to v7 and upgrade the Vm tools. What you cant do is try and move a version 7 hardware VM to a 3.5 host.

[Troy_Clavell]

...and if not clear on the path. The VMware Tools have to go first, then the virtual hardware. The vHardware will only get upgraded to v7 after your entire environment is on 4.x.

[russkiel]

cool.

thank you for the reassurrance but you bring up another question.

what's the "V7" you're referring to?

i'm moving virtual machines from an ESX 3.5 host to an ESX 4.0 host. what's the V7 reference?

Russ

[Troy_Clavell]

v7 is the virtual hardware version for vSphere 4.x guests

See what's new

http://www.vmware.com/support/vsphere4/doc/vsp_40_new_feat.html

[DSTAVERT]

V7 refers to the level of the virtual hardware that your VM is using. Like updating the motherboard on your home computer. The guest needs to be off to do the upgrade to the new hardware level and the change is almost instant. I would do a test or two with a clone of your most critical servers and absolutely do not make the change until you have totally made the change to ESX 4. You can not revert to the version 4 hardware and it is not possible run version 7 hardware on ESX 3.5. You can operate quite comfortably with version 4 hardware although you loose some of the new performance and capabilities of version 7 hardware.

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