Migrate a cluster to a new vCenter Server

[saiello]

Hello all,

  I have recently started at a new company that has previously had some issues with their VMware infrastructure.  Previously they had their vCenter in a VM but (something, I wasn’t there at the time) happened which lead them to move the vCenter server and Database to a new host.  The environment is stable now, but the vCenter server isn’t keeping any historical reporting data.  I’ve found this is common when moving the vCenter database.

  So I’m faced with 2 options.  1 try and recreate all the performance reporting jobs, then migrate the vCenter from ESXi 4.1 to 5.0 or create a new vCenter server with a new database, and migrate the clusters to the new vCenter server.  Currently the environment is not using dVS’s.

Any advice or tips?  Links to white papers that you have found helpful would be appreciated.

Thanks and have a great day!

Steven

[MauroBonder]

If you created a new virtual center on the basis of data without information, the previous history was actually the old virtual center. You do not know to recreate it to be viable, but one thing that might help, will be using the date of VMware Migration Tool to migrate data to an upgrade scenario.

look if help

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102438...

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102163...

If you have plan to migrde check upgrade guide with correct procedure to do upgrade.

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-50-upgrade...

if the history of the cluster are very important, or if you use to do reports, or manage anything about this cluster its good migrate all data to new vcenter and keep all informations there.
now, if you dont need this history, you can use a clean history to become collect new metrics of this cluster.

all depends of what you need

good luck