While there are many ways of doing this, here is the method I personally prefer as it doesn't require using converter. Point your new vCenter 5 instance to the 3.5 licensing. Go to Administr...
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While there are many ways of doing this, here is the method I personally prefer as it doesn't require using converter. Point your new vCenter 5 instance to the 3.5 licensing. Go to Administration>vCenter Server Settings. Under Licensing>License Server, enter the name of your 3.5 vCenter server. Should look something like 27000@myoldvcenter.mydomain.com Configure your old LUNs and vSwitches on the new ESX hosts In the old VIC, remove your ESX 3.5 hosts from any clusters then disconnect them from the 3.5 vCenter. Add the old ESX hosts to the new VCenter VMotion your VMs to the new ESX hosts. At this point your are still left with old 3.5 VMs and VMFS. Next steps will require brief downtime depending upon the size of your VMDKs. Do a "hardware upgrade" on the VMs and reboot them VMOTION Storage to new LUNs with new VMFS Done! Gotcha's to watch for while migrating: New MAC Addresses (if you use converter or other methods) When VMotion as described above, you may have to edit each VM to update the network settings especially if you are moving to a distributed switch If your ESX 3.5 hosts are unstable and/or you don't remove them from your old clusters prior to disconnecting them, they may crash