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gene_torres
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Migrating VMs from ESX 3.5 to 3.0?

Hi, hopefully someone can answer (or verify) this fairly quickly so I don't have to call support..

I have to downgrade ESX from 3.5 to 3.0 (licensing we have doesn't allow for VMotion on 3.5, but it does for 3.0). I have to migrate the VMs on the 3.5 host to the 3.0 host. Nothing has to be done besides migrating them,correct? I just wantt o be sure before I actually do it, and don't have space for a test VM right now.

Thanks.

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Troy_Clavell
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migrating them back to a 3.0 server will be fine. Once you rebuild your 3.5 server back to 3.0, you can Vmotion the VMs around and rebuild accordingly.

good luck!

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Troy_Clavell
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migrating them back to a 3.0 server will be fine. Once you rebuild your 3.5 server back to 3.0, you can Vmotion the VMs around and rebuild accordingly.

good luck!

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gene_torres
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That's all I needed to know. I say I don't have space because we're doing the VM guest shuffle to upgrade each server one by one... not fun. ;P. It's a great time to realize just how much resources are being used, and tuning accordingly, though.

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Troy_Clavell
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yup... great test for resources.

any love for points???

Gabrie1
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Hi

I find it very strange that you have problems with your vmotion licenses. For 3.5 I didnot use a different license....

Gabrie

http://www.GabesVirtualWorld.com
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VirtualNoitall
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Hello,

VMs deployed to 3.5 will show security issues, when you try to use the conolse in the VI client, after you vmotion them to 3.0x hosts as per: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=100303...

Also, if you have a snapshot, taken while the machine is running, you won't be able to revert it on the 3.0x host.

Troy_Clavell
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If all of his hosts are going to be rebuilt to 3.0, this console error should only be prevelant until the rebuilds are complete. Once all of his host servers are on the same build, everything will be find.

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gene_torres
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Thanks for the extra info everyone.

Gabrie,

We originally purchased licenses (enterprise) for 3.0. There's a licensing delta for enterprise between 3.0 and 3.5 according to the VMWare licensing agent we spoke to. The enterprise version of 3.0 that we have, maps to the standard version of 3.5, so VMotion isn't included if we go to 3.5 unless we pay that extra (per-cpu) cost. Other than VMotion, everything works though on 3.5 with our current licensing.

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tabit
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Did your vMotion stop working after upgrading to 3.5?

How do you check if a 3.0 Enterprise license is 3.5 vMotion ready?

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gene_torres
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No, we didn't have VMotion prior to purchasing the upgrade licenses, however, we purchased the Enterprise upgrade licenses for ESX 3.0 (before 3.5 was even released) and not 3.5So after upgrading, I was looking for the VMotion settings and couldn't find them. I called VMWare and they told me that the Enterprise version of ESX 3.0 that we purchased licenses for actually mapped to the Standard version of ESX3.5, so the licenses wouldn't transfer directly to 3.5 (we'd have to buy Enterprise upgrade licenses specific to 3.5) Since it's going to cost an arm and a leg to upgrade a half version just to get the VMotion feature, we decided to just downgrade the server we have 3.5 on.

You should contact VMWare to find out if your purchased licenses are going to be transferrable along with all the features you paid for - to 3.5, before trying to upgrade.

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gene_torres
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Sure enough, i have the permissions issues on the console after migrating from 3.5 to 3.0. Applied the chmod 755 to each of th vmx files and, console access now works again. Extra thanks for posting that link!

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