Moving To a New Server Advice

[LookingForwardT]

Hello all,

I have personal and professional experience with VMware, and ESX, but the only experience I have with ESXI is from our Live Server with ESXI 5.5 running on it currently. From phone calls and google, I have researched this topic and got a a few different answers. They range from migration, cold migration, converting the file and applying it to the host, using vmotion (I have a trial on the new server, not the old server) and a few others that are not worth mentioning IMO. Here's a list of my hardware

I included pics to show the 2 Servers

Our live (old)  server is a  Dell  T310, 500GB HD, 32GB RAM, Raid 5, Perc 6 controller, 4 Core Intel Xeon 2.5 GHZ, Dual Port Gigabit NIC- Standalone Free License - Running ESXI 5.5

Our New Server is a Dell T420, 1TB HD, 48GB Ram, Perc H710p controller, 8 Core Intel Xeon E5-2450 v2 2.5 GHZ, Dual Port Gigabit NIC - This server is already configured in Vsphere- 60 Day Enterprise Trial License ( This trial includes vMotion) Running ESXI 5.5

We're a small business with only 1 vm, Windows Server 2008 R2 64 bit

What I'm trying to accomplish is moving our existing Live/ Old server, and put it on the new server. From your past experience, whats the best, easiest and safest way? I plan to do this over the weekend, where the server will not be running in a Live environment, and I can turn it on and off as I please.

Also if things are not working on the New Server as expected, we would like to be able to just turn on the old server and work normally....

Any links to guides, tips, and what to expect, are all greatly appreciated.  Thank you and Happy New Year!

[ClintColding]

The easiest way IMO would be to create a vMotion network between your two physical servers and use vMotion to change the VM's host and datastore.

[LookingForwardT]

Thank you for your prompt reply. Only issue with that is I only have vMotion on our new server because of the evaluation period. Our old server is only a free standalone license........

[ClintColding]

Sorry, I missed that part.

Veeam's Backup Free can migrate VM's from host to host.

http://www.veeam.com/blog/how-to-move-a-vmware-vm-from-one-host-to-another-without-vmware-vmotion.ht...

Veeam Backup Free Edition for virtual machines (VeeamZIP)

Quick blurb from their site:

Migrate VMs between hosts and/or datastores

The Quick Migration utility in Veeam Backup Free Edition lets you migrate a live VM to any host or data store—even if you don’t use clusters or shared storage.

Quick Migration leverages native VMware technology, as well as exclusive Veeam technology, to accommodate any migration scenario, including:

• Migrating a VM from a local data store to shared storage
• Migrating a VM between two separate hosts and data stores

With Quick Migration’s point-and-click interface, you can easily move a live VM from any source to any destination, even if vMotion and vStorage Motion aren’t available. And with Veeam’s SmartSwitch technology, downtime is reduced to mere seconds.

[LookingForwardT]

I read about that when preparing my project, but was skeptical of using 3rd party software. Then I was just reading another article about it, and now you're recommending it.....lol  Thank you very much for the added blurb from the site, it sounds promising.

[ClintColding]

We use the Enterprise version of Veeam for Backup and Replication. It's a great product and even better that they offer a fairly feature rich free version.

[LookingForwardT]

Their free product is definitely rich in features. I really appreciate you going out of your way to help. I'm downloading it now, and will update on my progress

[Wscholz]

I guess you do not use shared storage do you ? You could always scp the vm files from one host to the other or you could use something like vmware converter standalone.

[LookingForwardT]

I was trying to figure out how to use shared storage but have no luck. Also what does scp mean? Both servers are in the same network, same domain....... Also If our old server has a 200 GB Hard Drive, and the new server has 1TB HD, When I migrate to the new server, will it only show the 200gb hard drive? Or will it show the 1TB?

[Wscholz]

scp is a command from the secure shell (ssh) suite to copy files between hosts. So you could simply enable the ESXi shell according to this:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200474...

Then login to the source ESXi and use the following command as an example to copy the directory "foo" to your destination ESXi server destinationesx.yourdomain.com

scp -r foo root@destinationesx.yourdomain.com:/vmfs/volumes/yourdatastore/foo

After that simply register the VM on the destination with the VI Client.