Is it possible to import ESX hosts that used to belong to another vcenter & dbase to a new vcenter & dbase?

[ebudweiser8]

I have a server that died that hosted our VMware SQL dbase and the dbase recoveries are not working.  All hosts and VMs remain running but I was wondering if i could do a fresh install of vSphere and create a new SQL dbase and then import my hosts & VMs.  Will this work or are there issues due to the hosts & VMs being part of another vCenter?

[logiboy123]

You can easily import a host that was being managed by another vCenter server. You will lose any advanced configuration items like;

1) Resource Pool configurations and settings

2) Folder structures

3) Cluster settings

Essentially I would just to build a new vCenter enviornment similar to what you had before (if you had a design document this would make your life easier) and then start importing your hosts.

Regards,

Paul

[bulletprooffool]

Absolutely, yes.

The VC is just for centriliased management and add-on features - if you remove a host form a VC, youcan re-add it to another VC - wothout even stopping the VMs running on it.

If you can though, you are best off manually removing it from the old VC before attempting to add it to the new VC.

good luck

[ebudweiser8]

Will there be any issues if I can't remove the VMs from the vCenter?  Can I just add them to the newly created vCenter & dbase?

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

VM's are registered to ESX(i) Hosts, not vCenter.  So, when you "add Host" to vCenter all the VM's registered on that ESXI(i) host come with.