Can a VM be powered on /reachable after the physical location its host changes?

[admin]

If all IP addresses of a VM are static and set to some local subnet. Then after we move the site of its host, these previous defined subnets cannot be reached. When we readded the host into a new datacenter. Can we power on the VM since all of its subnets are not reachable?

[VMmatty]

You will be able to power on the virtual machine regardless of whether or not the VM itself can reach the network. You will more than likely have to change the IP address inside the guest to match the new subnet. But provided that the ESX host is configured correctly and its networking is setup correctly, you should have no trouble turning on the VM.

[admin]

Thanks for the reply. So one thing I want to make clear. The way the host connects/talks to its VM is by vmx file(disk file) not by the VM IP address, right?

[VMmatty · Accepted solution]

The ESX host doesn't communicate with the virtual machines that it hosts over their IP address configured in the guest. You can have ESX hosts that host virtual machines running in a DMZ and other configurations in which the networking configuration of ESX doesn't match the VM.

ESX does communicate with the VMs for things like time sync and the VMware Tools heartbeat, but it doesn't use the guest networking configuration to do so.