Migrating VMs from old VMWare 5.1 servers to new servers running Esxi 5.5

[Syed_Mazhar]

Hi,

We are trying to replace two HP DL 360 G6 running Esxi 5.1 with HP DL 380G9 with Esxi 5.5.  We have Esxi Essentials plus license and limit to two servers but we want to add two new servers to Vcenter, so that we can migrate the VMs from old servers to new servers, however our license is only for two servers, so how that would work ?

What is the best way to approach this ?

How can we utilize maximum benefit of Esxi 5.5 with HP G9 servers. we can use NAS if needed.

What must be confiurged on new Servers before migrating the VMs? vMotion or HA (if supported in Essentials plus)

Many thanks

Maz

[rcporto]

Are you sure that your Essential Plus license supports only 02 (two) hosts ? How many physical CPU each host HP DL360 G6 has ? Take a look a image bellow for some clarification about the Essential Plus license:

[cykVM]

Can't you just use the 60 day trial/evalution mode of ESXi to migrate everything and afterwards remove the license from the old hosts and enter them on the new ones?

The evalutaion mode should give you vMotion and HA (if needed) for that 60 days.

[Syed_Mazhar]

Thank you for correcting me. Yes you are right, we can install this license on 3 Hosts.

1. Is it beneficial to install vCenter Operations Manager on the Hosts before migration?

2. Shall we do vMotion between Esxi 5.1 and Esxi 5.5 or it's better to manually export Esxi 5.1 VM files and import to new Esxi 5.5 Hosts?

3. Can we achieve vMotion directly between two servers, without any NAS/SAN shared storage and if that is possible?

4. We also want to achieve redundancy between the two hosts, if one host goes down. What's best way to achieve that?

5. It looks like I cannot add new  Esxi 5.5 host into our existing vCenter 5.1 server application? Do I need to update vCenter 5.1 to 5.5 first?

Many Thanks

Maz

[rcporto]

1. Is it beneficial to install vCenter Operations Manager on the Hosts before migration?

No, since vRO (formerly vCOPs) will provide monitoring capabilities and not facilitate the migration.

2. Shall we do vMotion between Esxi 5.1 and Esxi 5.5 or it's better to manually export Esxi 5.1 VM files and import to new Esxi 5.5 Hosts?

No sure if you will can vMotion VMs from old to new hosts since if your CPUs differs the vMotion may not be compatible, and you will may need shutdown the VM on old host, migrate to the new hosts, and power on the VM on new host, but you will need shared storage.

3. Can we achieve vMotion directly between two servers, without any NAS/SAN shared storage and if that is possible?

Without shared storage is possible migrate VMs between hosts using the vSphere Web Client, but to do this online, the physical CPUs from hosts must be the same.

4. We also want to achieve redundancy between the two hosts, if one host goes down. What's best way to achieve that?

Using shared storage and configuring a cluster with this two hosts and enabling HA.

5. It looks like I cannot add new  Esxi 5.5 host into our existing vCenter 5.1 server application? Do I need to update vCenter 5.1 to 5.5 first?

vCenter 5.1 cannot manage ESXi 5.5, because of this, you will need upgrade your vCenter to version 5.5 first and then add the ESXi 5.5 hosts to upgraded vCenter.