Hi, all
I have read through various posts and kbs and nothing seems to quite fit my scenario:
I have a vmware 6.5 environment that was migrated from a 5.5 environment.
During the migration, both sets of hosts and licenses were connected to the same vCenter server/appliance.
We had temporary use of the old 5.5 licenses during our migration.
Old environment: 3 ESX hosts, NetApp SAN, vCenter Server on windows, VMware Essentials Plus v5.5
New environment: 3 ESX hosts, Nimble SAN, vCenter Server Appliance, VMware Standard v6.5
Although the migration was completed, I did not get the old 5.5 environment cleaned up in time and our 5.5 licenses expired. (That was the first mistake) This delay caused the old 5.5 hosts (referred to as ESX-HOSTxx-v5 in the rest of this post) and it's vCenter server (referred to as "VM-VCS-v5" in the rest of this post) to disconnect from our new vCenter environment. "VM-VCS-v5" was the only VM that was not migrated.
I am now doing that cleanup.
My first attempt:
In vCenter Server "VM-VCS-v5" is powered up and running on "ESX-HOST02-v5". As mentioned above, both that VM and Host are disconnected from vCenter.
In vCenter, none of the options work to manage that disconnected "VM-VCS-v5" - everything is grayed out.
I was able to power off "VM-VCS-v5" via a simple RDP to the server and shutdown.
However, I still had no options to remove it from the new vCenter list. In fact, the new vCenter server still showed it running on "ESX-HOST02-v5", even though it was shutdown.
I then, using vSphere Client, logged into "ESX-HOST02-v5", selected "VM-VCS-v5" and did a remove from disk. (Maybe the 2nd mistake)
That worked great to take it out of the inventory of "ESX-HOST02-v5". However, it is still in the inventory of the new vCenter.
And, it is no longer on disk/storage anywhere.
Within the new vCenter, I cannot perform various tasks on the old/disconnected hosts.
For example, I can't add vm's to "ESX-HOST02-v5", cannot power-off or shut down the host, cannot perform any storage functions on the host.
One of the few host-related options I have are 'Connect' and 'Remove from Inventory'
Not wanting to get myself in a worse situation, I am asking for help.
My first question...
How do I remove that disconnected vm "VM-VCS-v5" from my new vCenter Server?
One post says the vm will go away/unregister from vCenter when I remove the host (ie, when I select host "ESX-HOST02-v5" and do a 'remove from inventory'). That sounds simple enough. However, I'm not as confident on trying this as these 'remove/delete' steps are not reversible.
Note that "VM-VCS-v5" doesn't really exist anywhere. It simply shows in the vCenter server inventory, and shows as running on "ESX-HOST02-v5" (even though it is shutdown and deleted from disk).
And once that is resolved...
How do I remove the disconnected hosts "ESX-HOSTxx-v5" from the new vCenter Server inventory?
It seems that simply shutting them down will still leave them in the vCenter list.
Is it as simple as 'remove from inventory'? If I try that, and it doesn't work, my options seem even more limited.
I look forward to any recommendations!
