Change VirtualCenter server

[StefanoChiappin]

Hello,

I had my 2 ESX 3.5 hosts registered on a temporary VirtualCenter for testing purposes. Now we bought the necessary licenses and I installed a new VirtualCenter on a dedicated machine. Is there any hint/procedure to migratethe two ESX servers from the previous VC 2.5 to the new (always ver. 2.5) ?

Thank you for any advice,

Stefano

[rossb2b]

Do you have DRS and HA enabled? If not you should be able to disconnect and remove the ESX server from one and add it to the other. If you are using DRS and HA you will probably need to disable it before moving.

[Troy_Clavell]

pretty straight forward as Ross pointed out. If you two ESX servers are in a cluster with HA/DRS, just disable it.

From the new VC, right click on the cluster/datacenter, or wherever you want the host to reside and click on add host. You will get a pop us saying it is being managed by.... do you want to add it, yes.

[ctfoster]

Detach it from one and Add it to the other using the GUI options. I assume you are not interested in the historical data.

[azn2kew · Accepted solution]

If you're running VC 2.5 , might want to update your latest patches due to known minor license mode bug which has been resolved via patch update. Other than steps mentioned above, their are no problems to whatsoever, especially just disconnect/reconnect. I'm assuming you're doing a license server option so make sure your .lic file is the latest and when you reread your .lic file make sure the features listed is what you've paid for. Its always good to add host entries for your esx hosts via /ect/hosts file so that HA can operate freely when your DNS server failed.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems LLC.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[StefanoChiappin]

First of all thanks to everyone for your replies.

I'm currently running a cluster, with 2 hosts inside and several VMs. The licence is centralized, and the license server is on the old VC machine. What does it mean "I'm not interested in historical data" ? It this data are the logs then ok, I can loose them, but for sure I want to keep all the network confguration (virtual switches) and storage (SAN configuration). Will I loose something, and shall manually reconfigure all ?

Thanks for the hint of the patch, I didn' t think about it. I think I'll patch the esx hosts too.

Bye.

[ctfoster]

What does it mean "I'm not interested in historical data" ? It this data are the logs then ok"

No not even the logs - just the historical performance data on this host held in the database. Everything else (Network, SAN) , including the logs will be brought forward.

[rossb2b]

If you are connecting to the same backend database then you won't even lose the performance data.

[StefanoChiappin]

Ok, the migration was painless.

Bye,

Stefano