how to move all exsi host to a new vcenter

[ginger8990]

we have  a vcenter was intalled on a linux OS. They cannot make it vcenter authenticated with Active Directory so almost every one login vSphere client using Root ID. 1) We want to install a new vcenter on a windows server 2008 R2 2) how to migrate all hosts one by one to the new vcenter? 3) Is it possible to have two vcenters (one is windows and one is linux) 4) can we just leave linux guest OS on linux vCenter and move all windows VMs to windows vcenter? Need some good steps or articles to get this done. Greatly appreciate your advice and help. Ginger

[abhilashhb]

So you have an vCenter appliance and you are not able to authenticate AD users for the Appliance? If you are moving to windows vCenter solely because of that reason it will be a bad move. Because you can make it work with AD. Here's a nice link for that.

Configuring Active Directory Authentication for the vCenter Server Appliance

If there are other reasons to it then here's another post that will help you with vCSA to Windows-based vcenter migration. Migrating a vCenter appliance to a vCenter Windows server | The Little Things

It is possible to have two vCenters but they should have their own hosts which are managed by them. If you are asking can a host be part of two vCenters at once. No, that is not possible. And again, Doesn't have to be like linux should run on vCenter server appliance and windows should run on windows based vCenter. Apart from the fact that they come on different platforms they have almost the same functionality.

[aravinds3107]

we have  a vcenter was intalled on a linux OS. They cannot make it vcenter authenticated with Active Directory so almost every one login vSphere client using Root ID

Follow this to configured authentication on the vCenter appliance vSphere 5.5 Documentation Center 

how to migrate all hosts one by one to the new vcenter?

Incase if you still want to move the host to the new vCenter, follow this KB its a simple process without any downtime

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100477...

3) Is it possible to have two vcenters (one is windows and one is linux)

Same set of ESXi host cannot be managed in two different vCenter

[ginger8990]

Thank you for you good advise. What is considered as a bad move??? I don't know so much about Linux. 1) Eventually we need to upgrade Vcenter and vsphere  to 5.5 2) We still have 5 hosts on 4.0 and 4.1 3) what is consideration to upgrade these hosts? Just migrate VMs from the old host to others and then upgrade the host to 5.1 ?

[ginger8990]

Further question: How to migrate/ upgrade each host on vCenter virtual appliance to a new version? Is it the same ways as upgrade the host for Windows vCenter? We have some old version host 4.0 and 4.1 but the vCenter virtual appliance is 5.1.

[abhilashhb]

Yes its the same way. You can use the same methods to upgrade the hosts.

[ginger8990]

We decide to move hosts from VCVA to a Windows vCenter . But we have different version of exsi hosts , 5.1, 4.1 and 4.0 . I am not sure whether that matters if the hosts have different versions. I would like to get some advise about my steps: 1) build a windows vcenter (it should be  straight forward) 2) migrate all VMs on one host to another host on VCVA 3) remove or disconnect this "empty" host from VCVA 4) add the host to  the new windows vcenter 5) but how to move VMs from the  host on VCVA to the new vcenter???

[abhilashhb]

Here's what you do. Build a new Windows vcenter. Then you need to disconnect the hosts from the present vCenter by first selecting Disconnect and then Remove(This is remove the vpxa agent from the hosts). Now Add the new host into the new vcenter. You don't have to empty the host to move it into new vcenter. When you disconnect the host from a vcenter the VM's on it will be running as they were previously.

If you have any vApps or resource pools you will lose the configuration as vApps are created at vcenter level. Once hosts are moved to new vcenter you will have to create a vApp container and add the VM's into it.

[aravinds3107]

Always check VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes to make sure if the host can be managed by vCenter. It doesnt matter if vCSA or Windows based vCenter, As long you are able to manage the host with the vCenter 5.1 then its good to go.

There is no downtime for the VM's when moving the host to new vCenter, Check the KB VMware KB: Moving a managed ESXi/ESX host from one VirtualCenter Server/vCenter Server to another Vi... for the steps to move the host

[ginger8990]

Thank you all. I don't think we have vApps. No one knows  vApps so well here . I don't know  vApps neither:)  We definitely don't have resource pool. We use NetApp Filer as data source. I  am confused about the datastore. If we move VMs and Hosts to the new vCenter, all datastore remains where they are? We also have different version of exsi host.

[Jayden56]

Hi

Welcome to the communities.

Did you followed belwo link which if first option.

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=203981....

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