vCenter Standard Switch Issue

[UCG_Keith]

Hello,

My first post, so I apologize if this is in the incorrect group.

I am having an issue with vcenter (version 5.5) connecting to our distributed switch.  Last night, during maintenance removed our vcenter NIC that was connected to our distributed switch. I was able to access vcentr via the console from my esxi host.  I have a spare physical nic (vmnic3) so I created a Switch1 and added vmnic3 to Switch1.  I assigned the proper vlan (211) to Switch1 and then added a new nic to vcenter with the proper IP address.  I am able able to ping our database server, dns servers and view server from vcenter but cannot ping from the servers that are on the distributed switch back to switch1.

I hoped I could just migrate the vmnic3 on switch1 along with the vm (vcenter) to the distributed switch from my esx host.  But it will move the nic but not the vm to the s]distributed switch.  I am able to log into vcenter while consoled into vcenter with vsphere credentials; however, when vcenter loads I get "Empty Inventory"

Is there a solution to get our vcenter nic to be migrated to the distributed switch?

Thank you in advance.

Cheers Keith

[daphnissov]

I'm not clear as to the series of events that occurred which "broke" your vCenter here. You say you

removed our vcenter NIC that was connected to our distributed switch

but what exactly did you do?

Describe the number of ESXi hosts you have and how many vmnics (pNICs) are joined to the vDS. I'm also curious as to what things look like right now. Keep in mind screenshots help, and you can paste them in-line with text.

[UCG_Keith]

Hi,

They  removed the vm NIC in the edit settings on our vcenter vm while logged into the ESX host when he realized the mistake he tried to add a new nic on the VM but there is no option to select the port groups of the distributed switch.

We have 3 esx hosts and 4 NIC's

Here are a couple of screenshots.

The vm is connected to vmnic3 via standard switch1. I need to move the vm from here to the distributed switch

This is the distributed switch that I need to move the VM to:

[daphnissov]

You had this problem because you did not set the port group to ephemeral mode. If this vCenter is still able to manage the ESXi host in question, go into vCenter and find this VLAN-211 port group and change it ephemeral (no) binding. It should show up at the ESXi level when logged into the C# client.

[UCG_Keith]

I cannot manage esx host from vCenter. When I open the web client from the console of vCenter I just see ”empty inventory “. I should have mentioned this. My apologies.

We have a separate database server that I can ping and trace from vCenter vm. But cannot ping and trace from the database server located on vlan211.

[UCG_Keith]

Is there any option available to get this vm to connect to distributed switch without going through vcenter?

thanks

[daphnissov]

Is there any option available to get this vm to connect to distributed switch without going through vcenter?

No, a vDS has its control plane element inside vCenter. To reconnect VMs to a vDS port group, vCenter has to be available.

What it sounds like you may need to do is reset host networking on these ESXi hosts, create temporary vSS entities and vSS port groups, get all VMs moved over there, and then re-create the vDS. While having some VMs on vSS-backed port groups and others on vDS-backed port groups should be fine, you seem to have created some kind issue here. I'd say you might want to open an SR, but you're grotesquely out of support now (which I'm guessing you know because you've come here).

[UCG_Keith · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the information. I am aware that my personal account doesn’t have support but the company I work for does.

I successfully resolved the issue without recreating the vds. 

i have an available pnic that I used to create switch1. I assigned the correct vlan and powered on vCenter. Once vCenter came online I was able to select the vds vlan that I needed and all is working properly.

Now we can upgrade their vCenter as planned.

Cheer!