Moving vCenter from one cluster to another without vmotion

[terrible_towel]

I have a VSAN 7 cluster with mixed CPUs… EVC mode was not enabled when it was created. We’ve only recently added newer CPUs that can’t vmotion to the older CPUs.  So I want to enable EVC mode.  I’ve scheduled a maintenance window to power off all VMs on the cluster so that I can set  the EVC mode.

But the vCenter that manages the cluster is in the cluster.   I have another cluster that I can run the vCenter for this cluster on.

I can’t Cross vCenter VMotion it …  EVC modes are not compatible.

So my plan is:

1. Storage Vmotion to an NFS server that used by both clusters.
2. Shut down  the vCenter VM.
3. Logon to ESX Host that has vCenter VM directly, and remove from Inventory.
4. (this leaves the vCenter VM as orphaned in the original cluster vcenter)
5. On 2nd cluster, add vCenter VM to inventory (by browsing shared NFS datastore)
6. Power up vCenter
7. Once up.. remove from inventory the orphaned VM from the first cluster.

I’ll then be free to power off all VMs on the first cluster, set the EVC mode, and power the VMs back up.

(This cluster is only for VDI, and doing it off hours when barley in use..)

Does this seem like a viable plan?  Given the fact that I can shutdown all the VM's, this seems like the simplest way to get it done.
Its a VSAN cluster, so I want to avoid removing hosts from the cluster, etc...

Thanks.

Paul

[terrible_towel]

So this plan worked fine.  vCenter was moved to alternate cluster with just a quick power off/power on.

Paul

[jackhol95]

Hi @terrible_towel 

i have a similar situation: A cluster (evc disabled) with 2 hosts with uncompatible CPU's. Only 1 uncritical vm is running on the host with highest CPU gen. So i think i delete that 2nd host from the existing cluster and make a new cluster with evc enabled and then follow the same procedure like you did?