We have a need to move some vm's to a remote location. The local cluster is ESX 3.5, and we'd like to move them to a ESX 4.1 cluster, in a remote office. Moving that amount of data over the wire, using converter will not be practicle. Is it possible to export it out to an external drive, and then import it into the 4.1 environment once it arrive at the remote location? Perhaps, turn off the vm, remove from inventory, and copy all associated datastore directories to the external drive. Once the drive arrives at remote location, do an import? Somethng like that. I'm also aware that I'll need to upgrade the hardware and tools once imported.
Thanks!
Welcome to the Community - if you are willing to endure an outahe the best way would be to export the VMs from the 3.5 environemnt as an OVF copy them to an external USB drive bring them to the new site an import into the ESX 4.1 environment -
Hi RialbSelur,
welcoem to the community .
please find the below simple steps.
Export: Select VM then from the menu File->Virtual Appliance->Export
Import: Select from menu File->Virtual Appliance->Import
Thanks, guys. Sounds easy enough.