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simulacra
Contributor
Contributor

Moving VM's from ESXI hosts

I have a couple of questions around ESXi 4.1 and ESX 4.0 and VM server 2.0. 

Consider that there are 3 VM storage machines in three different locations, say Dallas, San Diego and Tampa. Dallas is a VMware infrastructure server 2, San Diego is an ESXI 4.1 server, and Tampa is an ESX 4.0 server. Asssume also that the Tampa machine has different hardware specs from the other two sites, like processor speed, raid, and system memory.

If a VM (with an OVA template) were built in Dallas, can it be moved to Tampa without modification?  If so, what happens to the Mac addresses and software id's etc.. or does VMware take care of all of that during a move? Also, can a vm created in Server 2 be moved to an ESX machine?

Thanks in advance.

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mrksiddiqui
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Any time you export VM it will change the mac when being imported. However you can overirde the mac address to same one that you would like. I am not sure what you mean by software ID? Use Vmware standalone convert to import/export VM's.

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DCjay
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@mrksiddiqui, you are absolutely correct.

During cloning deploying a template or importing an OVA or during vmware comertion a new MAC address is generated.

Though can be hard coded after the Vm have be imported to the ESX/ESXI host.

All VMs in ESX/ESXi will assume the hardware spec of the host. That is RAM, CPU, disk etc.

Hope this helps

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bulletprooffool
Champion
Champion

Moving from Server to ESX / ESXi will require conversion of the vmdks, as they are formatted differently.

In this case, you can use VMWare converter, or vmkfstools to run an import :

http://www.get-virtual.info/2011/01/28/importing-a-vm-from-vm-workstation-to-esx-esxi/

Of course, you'll effectively be creating a new VM, so you will get a MAC address change etc.

YThis does not mean that you are stuck with the MAC address - it is possible to either right-click the VM and manually select a MAC address, or alternatively, you could open the.vmx file for the VM and set the mac address in there (do so befor eimporting the VM on the new host)

Good luck

One day I will virtualise myself . . .
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simulacra
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the replies. When I say software ID, what i mean is that software licensing and other application data relevant to the initial OS build still applies to the imported/moved virtual machine.

What I want to do is build a machine in Dallas and move it to tampa in a few weeks. It sounds like all I'll need to do is user VM converter to go from one site to the other. Now, another question is can i change the vnic configuration once the vm is moved? so if I build this in Dallas one way, is it easy to change this after moving and importing it in?

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mrksiddiqui
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

All software should stay intact. You can change the NIC mac address in the VM as described above.

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DSTAVERT
Immortal
Immortal

It is certainly possible that you may need to re-activate OS. Also be aware of the disk controller if you are creating a VM in VMware Server (IDE vs SCSI).

-- David -- VMware Communities Moderator
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