vcenter domain move

[mperiyak]

I have a vcenter joined to domain oldco (Old Company)
I need to join to my new company AD newco (New Company)

I have 4 phsyical office locations in vCenter and each have 2 esx hosts in it. IP addressing remains the same.

For each of the esx hosts, I have to rename the DNS suffix.
The primary name esx1.oldco.com needs to change to esx1.newco.com

First question is can I do these tasks without down time. This is what the order of steps looks like to me

1) create DNS entry for esx entries in newco domain

2) leave AD for vcenter

3) join vcenter to newco AD

4) disconnect each esx host by going to maintenance mode

5) login to each host, make the hostname and dns changes

6) join them back to the newco vcenter

7) bring vm's back online

I am sure I may be missing a lot of steps..anything else I need to take care of..

[jburen]

When you perform step 4 you actually have to remove the ESXi host from the inventory. Maintenance Mode alone is not enough.

Also, look at your permissions/roles. You would have to re-create membership from AD groups/accounts.

And I don't think you would need step 7. VMs are not impacted by this change. Or do you need to connect them to the new AD as well?

[mperiyak]

Thanks for the answer. I already moved all my vm's to the new AD.

How are you saying VM's will not be impacted? If I put the hosts in maintenance mode will the VM's not be shut down