Moving VM's from one server to another

[Speedbmp]

we have ESX 3.02 storage is local.

we have a new ESX 3.5 storage is on a NFS

the old server has a standard license. the new server has VC, Vmotion, HA etc license. (we have two) because we are changing the 3.02 to 3.5 with the storage on the NFS also.

so we will have two 3.5 attached to the NFS for failover etc.

what do you think would be the best way to do this.

Stephen

[patrickds]

Either cold migrate the VMs to the 3.5 and NFS and then upgrade the 3.0.2, or upgrade the 3.0.2 first and then cold migrate or storage vmotion the vms to NFS.

No way to avoid downtime of the VMs, I'm afraid.

[Speedbmp]

Cold Migrate would use use Converter? or would you say use Veeam FastSCP?

Stephen

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

Do you have a VC Server? If so, you can add the stand alone hosts into VC, shut down each VM and choose migrate. This will give you the ability to cold clone the VM's onto the new HOSTS. When you cold migrate, one of the options will be to move or keep the storage, choose move. Once all VM's are off the old HOSTs, you can rebuild them to 3.5.

Hope this helps.

[patrickds]

You say you have VC.

Just connect both hosts to your VC, shutdown the vm and migrate.

[Speedbmp]

I do have VC, however the old 3.02 server is useing a license file and not looking at the VC now if i add the 3.02 server to the VC will it changing the license so i can do this? i am licensed to two ESX servers.

Stephen

[Troy_Clavell]

Host based licensing is fine. If you don't have enough licenses, remove one of your hosts from VC on

a temporary basis so you can add the older host in. Cold migrate the

VM's off the old host onto the other new host, remove the old host, and

add in the other.. make sense?

[patrickds]

Since your host is licensed (does not matter how), you can add it to VC.

To make things simpler later on, you could generate a new license file for both the ESX hosts, put it on your license server, and point the hosts to the license server.

[Speedbmp]

Well i installed it in to my VC, and i moved two test systems from it to the new system. that worked great. i only had to edit the migrated system network card. and once that was done i turned them on and updated the VM tools and we are good to go.

so this weekend when i move the production VM's i think i will be good to go

Thanks again.

Stephen