Merging two separate datacenters with different licensing.

[gdsmither]

Due to a merger of IT departments we have two datacenters and vCenter Servers.  The IP network is a flat Class A network.  The iSCSI are on two physically separate networks.

Datacenter 1 (DC1)

vCenter Foundation 5.5

3 hosts vSphere 5 Enterprise (6 cpu's)

1 Equallogic SAN 6200 series

Datacenter 2 (DC2)

vCenter Standard 5.1

2 hosts vSphere 5 Enterprise (4 cpu's)

1 Equallogic SAN 4000 series

We would like to:

1. move the Standard license from DC2 over to DC1 and the Foundation license from DC1 to DC2 (Swap Licenses)
2. import DC2 into vCenter on DC1 then drop the Foundation license on DC2.
3. Finally have both DataCenters operating from DC1 vCenter running Standard Edition 5.5

Can this be done at all?  How would we do this.

Thanks in advance:smileyconfused:

[TheSMO]

Hello gdsmither,

You might have to upgrade your vCenter Standard 5.1 license to a 5.5 one. N.B : Downgrading licenses could be a problem.

I advise you to contact your VMWare account manager our the support that will help you checking if it is possible (support, version, etc.).

I suggest you to be validate this scenario with your VMWare account manager or the support :

Upgrade vCenter Standard 5.1 license to a vCenter Standard 5.5

Upgrade your DC1 vCenter to Standard 5.5 and use the licence

Remove the hosts from the DC2 vCenter and add them to the DC1 vCenter

Stop the DC2 vCenter and keep it down for a few time (usefull if rollback needed).

Do not forget to backup vCenter DB and machine before any operation on each vCenter!!!

Just validate it with your VMWare account manager or the support to prevent from any issue.

the DC2 vCenter
Drop the licence from

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

With the licenses owned by the same company, the steps you mentioned should be ok.

From a technical point of view, you may however plan the migration depending on the features you use. A few things you may want to do is to disable HA and DRS on the DC2 environment before migrating the hosts to DC1 (just to avoid possible issues), and you may also want to make sure that e.g. datastore names on DC2 do not match names on DC1 to avoid confusion after the migration.

Unless special features are in use on DC2 which need to be taken care of prior to migration, you can simply disconnect the hosts from DC2 and add them to a DC1 with the VM's up and running. The host CPU licenses should automatically move with the hosts.

André

PS: TheSMO: Licenses are based on major versions, i.e. 5.x., so there's no need to up- or downgrade them in this case.

[gdsmither]

Thank you both for your answers.  I will be contacting VMware support prior to starting this procedure.  I will be backing up the DB on both and disable the HA and DRS on DC2.  I have checked the data store names and there are no conflicts.