VMware Cloud Community
Bharatk
Contributor
Contributor

VM movement from one vCenter 5.1 to another VC 5.1

Hello Guys,

I have one request to move few VMs from one vCenter 5.1 to another VC 5.1 so im planning on this.

Can you please suggest how many ways that we can consider to move these VMs within time.

Thank You,

  Bharat

4 Replies
vijayrana968
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Do you have linked mode configured between these 2 vCenters? How much VMs you are going to migrate and what is total size in approx.

Reply
0 Kudos
HarjitSB
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hello Bharat,

The sort of scenario comes in picture when we have two generation of hosts or upgrading our infrastructure, hope it is same with you as well.

The approach to migrate VMs from one VC to another requires planning-

1. There must be a storage bridge between both the cluster hosts of source VC and Destination VC.

2. obliviously network must be identical on both sites.

3. Downtime of VMs is required

4.Move the VM to newly created data-store (Bridge Data-store) on source and reverse on Destination

5.Power on the VM on Destination VC.

That's all , You are Done!

Rgds

-Harjit

vmwars.wordpress.com

PS- Mark as helpful, like or answered if found ok.

Bharatk
Contributor
Contributor

I have two VMs to move and those are in VDS switch on both source and destination VC.

Reply
0 Kudos
vijayrana968
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Well, if you have shared storage between these two vCenters and reachable network, then the steps HarjitSB​ mentioned are good to proceed.

If you dont have connectivity between these two, then you can procced with exporting these VMs and importing in new vCenter as OVF.

Step 1: from within the vSphere client, while connected to vCenter1, select the VM and then from "File" menu select "Export"->"Export OVF Template" (Note: make sure the VM is Powered Off otherwise this feature is not available - it will be gray). This action will allow you to save on your machine/laptop the VM (as an .vmdk, .ovf and a .mf file).

Step 2: Connect to the vCenter2 with your vSphere client and from "File" menu select "Deploy OVF Template..." and then select the location where you want to deploy these VMs.

You may need to change network settings for these VMs on new vCenter.

Reply
0 Kudos