ESXi 6.0 in cluster & migrate the VMs from standalone ESXi 6.0 hosts (Shared nothing vMotion)

[LMSADSA]

Hi

We have a few VMs which run only with ESXi 6.0, as of now all the VMs are running with standalone ESXi hosts. We are preparing 2 ESXi hosts in HA. We also have 2 X ESXi 6.7 in high availability and vCenter to manage them. Below are our main concerns

Can we manage the 2 X new ESXi 6.0 with same vCenter?

Can we add the 2 X new ESXi 6.0 with multiple vCenter servers?

How can we do a shared nothing vMotion with those VMs on standalone ESXi hosts?

Is there a way to restrict access for the new ESXi 6.0 clustered hosts for the team managing those ESXi hosts and VMs? (we want restrict them from manage existing ESXi 6.7 cluster)

Thanks in advance

[ThompsG]

Hi there,

Can we manage the 2 X new ESXi 6.0 with same vCenter?

Yes

Can we add the 2 X new ESXi 6.0 with multiple vCenter servers?

I'm assuming you are asking if you can connect the ESXi hosts to multiple vCenter servers at the same time, in which case the answer is No.

How can we do a shared nothing vMotion with those VMs on standalone ESXi hosts?

The ESXi hosts would need to be licensed for vMotion for this work. See this: Requirements and Limitations for vMotion Without Shared Storage​. This means they need to be running (licensed) with Essentials Plus as a minimum.

Is there a way to restrict access for the new ESXi 6.0 clustered hosts for the team managing those ESXi hosts and VMs?

Yes by using vCenter Permissions.

Hope this helps.

[bhards4]

Hi,

You can perform vmotion from ESXi host which is not having shared storage by using xvMotion. This feature is available from vCenter 5.5 on-words. Just make sure you have our source and destination host are reachable and should be in cluster for communication.

Next, You can set the permission desired based on the role who would e accessing the vCenter or cluster via vCenter rules, like read only, or setting customer rule and assigning appropriate permissions.

Regards,

Sachin

[LMSADSA]

Thank You Thomps & Sachin

Sorry to ask all these basic Qs. We are using Hyper V as the primary virtualization platform and moving to VMware in stages.

We don't have high availability for those VMs with multiple standalone ESXi hosts, and since many VMs are not compatible with existing ESXi 6.7 cluster, we plan to create 2 X ESXi 6.0 in cluster.

Existing vCenter is configured with one Datacenter & one Cluster with 2 ESXi 6.7 hosts. As you mentioned we will create a new cluster and add those 2 X new ESXi 6.0 hosts in same Datacenter. Here do we need to create multiple DCs (for easy management) since the new cluster need to be managed by ESXi management team as well by the team owing all those VMs.

If the existing standalone ESXi's are managing from a vCenter server, then as per the update from Thomps, we could not add them to the vCenter server managing new ESXi cluster, right? What is the option / workaround to add those standalone ESXi's to the vCenter managing new cluster. The team responsible for standalone ESXi hosts are on training, so we are not sure how they are managing those hosts (through vCenter or GUI)

We referred the KB for Shared nothing vMotion requirements and limitation document, will check source and destination hosts for the compatibility. By combining the recommendations from both of you what we understood is, each source ESXi host should be added to the new cluster in same vCenter server, then do a vMotion. Is it right?

xv Motion is same as what we mentioned above?

Thank You

[ThompsG]

Hi there,

Yes you are correct that you can create a new cluster and add the ESXi 6.0 hosts to it. You can assign permissions to Folders, DataCenters and Clusters so no problems with limiting access to the other team so they only see the cluster you want them to even under the same DataCenter.

What I meant in regards to vCenter is that an ESXi host can only be connected to 1 vCenter at a time. If the hosts are connected (managed) by another vCenter you will be told when you try to connect them to the new vCenter. If you proceed then they will be disconnected from the other and joined to this one. No issue with this howver I would let the other team know that’s what has happened otherwise they will see the hosts as disconnected and might reconnect them.

The rest is correct. In this case they should be connected to the same vCenter and the you can migrate them across non-shared storage. One other thing to bear in mind - the processors between the two clusters will need to be the same to do a live migration, I.e. Without taking an outage to the VM. If they are different then the migration will need to occur with the VMs powered off.

Kind regards.