migrate vm over crossover connection

[thb_]

we have to migrate vms from an stand alone esxi server to a new standalone esxi server. Both are managed through vcenter server.

The Network infrastructure only supports 100Mbit. So i thought i could connect old and new server through a crossover( 1Gbit) cable and create a port group which should be used for migration.

I was able to create the port group and set it to enable management and vmotion ( test with vmkping works fine ) but if i try to migrate a powerd off vm i dont get it to work that the crossover connection is beeing used.

Is there any way to use the 1Gbit connection for migration instead of the slow 100Mbit?

[jrmunday]

Powered off vMotion operations use the management interface, not the vMotion interface ... so this is expected behaviour.

[thb_]

i also enabled management on the crossover connection. Is there a way to force a connection for the powerd off migration

[a_p_]

Which vSphere version do you use? If vCenter Server as well as the hosts are v5.1 or newer, you could create a vMotion network with the 1GBit/s network adapters (using a separate subnet) and use live migration ("Change both host and datastore") from the Web Client. Other than cold migration, this should use the vMotion network to copy the data over to the other host.

André

[thb_]

old server esx 4.1 new esxi5.0

[MKguy · Accepted solution]

old server esx 4.1 new esxi5.0

These are the host versions, but what version of vCenter are you running?

If you use these kind of cold migrations via vCenter, it will choose the management interfaces according to how they are registered within vCenter.

Consider the following:

You have Host A and B which have two management interfaces with the respective IPs AX/AY and BX/BY. You registered your hosts in vCenter with IP AX and BX (or through a DNS-name that points to these IPs). The result is that the cold migration process will only take place between these two IPs. The other interfaces are not considered for cold migrations.

If you have registered the hosts via DNS-names, it might work if you temporarily alter the local /etc/hosts file on both hosts with AY and BY of the respectively other host.

Apart from that, you could create a VM on the crossover network that acts as a V2V server with VMware Converter, connecting to both hosts via their AY and BY IP to do a V2V conversion of the target VM over this crossover network.

[thb_]

i got another way which worked perfect dor my situation. Sometimes its so easy

Enable SSH on both hosts.

Copy from one to the other host.

scp test/* root@10.10.10.10:/vmfs/volumes/DS01/test

remove from inventory an register again on the new host.