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jkkmclaughlin
Contributor
Contributor
‎03-24-2014 01:13 PM

Migrating VM's from an Expired Host

I've got an expired ESX 5.0 host that was an evaluation, and I have since purchased vSphere and configured and installed it on a new environment with a complete san fabric array.  I need to move the VM's off the expired host and onto the new hardware which is fully licensed.  The only method that I can see is exporting the machines as an OVF/OVA file/package.  Is this the best method?  I'd rather not license a host that I'm going to decommission.

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2 Replies
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
‎03-24-2014 01:20 PM

Welcome to the Community,

exporting/importing is one option, another on is to backup/restore the VMs (I assume you do backup them anyway). A third option is to re-install the ESXi host with preserving the VMFS datastore, and temporarily add it to your vSphere environment to migrate the VMs.

André

jkkmclaughlin
Contributor
Contributor
‎03-24-2014 02:43 PM

Thanks!  We do backup our VM's, but just the data.  I'm going to try using a 30 day trial of veeam and backup the guests and restore them to our new host.  I'll keep you posted.

Appreciate the suggestions..

Kyle

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