Moving to a new vCenter Server

[antonbizzari]

Hello, we ran into application level failure on our old vCenter 6.0 server. I am considering giving up trying to fix the application and just move all ESXi servers to a new vCenter server.

I went through this documentation

How to move ESXi/ESX host from one vCenter Server to another (1004775) | VMware KB

I didn't setup the current environment. There are vswitches on the ESXi servers and multiple networks. But I am not sure if the environment has distriburted switches. How can I tell.

Also, there is a shared storage that all the VM's are connected to on the ESXi servers.

If I go through the activity of disconnecting from old vCenter server to new one, will this get lost?

Lastly, should I stick with vCenter 6.0 or should I go to 6.5? We are running mostly ESXi 6.0

[Mattallford]

Hi there,

You can connect to the ESXi host using the c# client, or if it is running the correct build you can get to the embedded host client at https://IPADDRESS/ui.

When connected, you can view the switch configuration and it should outline if the switches are vSwitches or Distributed switches. Feel free to post some screenshots if you like.

Your other option is to connect to the host using SSH and run the following commands:

esxcli network vswitch dvs vmware list

esxcli network vswitch standard list

The first will list any distributed switches, the second will list any vSwitches.

Your shared storage will not get lost. The connectivity to storage is held in the ESXi configuration, so when you add the hosts in to a new vCenter server, the storage will get detected automatically. You will lose any vCenter configurations for the storage such as alarms, datastore clusters, etc

In regards to vCenter Server version, I'd just bite the bullet and go for 6.5. vCenter 6.5 can manage 6.x hosts. Are you planning on upgrading ESXi on your hosts at any point?

Cheers, Matt.

[antonbizzari]

unfortunately, there is no esxcli command available on this vcenter appliance. i did a find for all files on the server. no such file.

[Mattallford]

Hi,

Connect to the ESXi host using SSH, not the vCenter Server Appliance.

esxcli is a command line utility available via shell on ESXi servers.

Cheers, Matt.

[Bunty11]

Go to vCenter 6.5.

Movement should be in this  order :

1) Deploy new vCenter

2) Add 2 Host out of existing cluster to new vCenter -> Eg. If you have 5 host in cluster move 2 to New vCentner

3) Click on Host and Go to Networking and see if the Switch is Standard or Distributed

Refer  - How to move ESXi/ESX host from one vCenter Server to another (1004775) | VMware KB

Refer - Moving an ESX/ESXi host with vDS from one vCenter Server to another (1029498) | VMware KB

4) Migrate VMs using Web Cosole