Fastest way to set up a production VM in another ESX Host ?

[TonyJK]

One of the ESX 3.5 Host is sick and we are advised to reboot the ESX Host (though there is 1 production VM running on it). However, the problem doesn't fix after the reboot.

We have to set up the Production VM to run on another ESX Host to minimize the downtime. From VI Client, it shows that the VM is still running (Powered on) and thus I am not able to remove it from Inventory.

I have attempted to add the VMX file to inventory again, it says that "The specified key, name or id already exist". I also observe that the directory in FC SAN still contains the log / vmx / vmdk files.

I wonder whether I should create another folder and move the vmdk file across, create a new VM with that VMDK file ?

Your advice is much appreciated.

[jp-H]

Hi Tony.

Did you try to vmotion the VM you want to move ?

In this case it is possible the Vmotion did not work correctly and the VM is not only running on one ESX host.

You have to find the host where the VM is partially running using : ps -edf | grep vmname

If you find a host where the VM is running (except the one yous see in vCenter server) you must kill the process for this VM.

Then you'll be able to stop your VM and to move it to another host.

[TonyJK]

The ESX Host is sick and we are not able to ping the service console. We cannot connect to it via PuTTy as well.

On the other hand, the VI client still shows that the VM is running.

Regards