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TheFlyingCorpse
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Migrate ESX hosts between vCenters

Hello,

I have been tasked with moving our ESX 3.5 hosts from the old vCenter 2.5 to a fresh vCenter 4.0.

The problem lies in migrating the ESX hosts without downtime. If I had the option of shutting down an ESX or VMotion them off, I would have done this, but the old VC2.5 is corrupt and does not allow for this.

I have been given 2 new boxes, a new box that will become the new VC4.0 and a new ESX 4.0 host.

My plan is to migrate the hosts from the old VC2.5 to the new VC4.0 by disconnecting them from the current vCenter and then simply adding them in the new VC4.0. After Google'ing a bit, I found that this is however not the easiest of tasks when I can not shut down the guests during the transistion.

Is there any way, like disconnecting, uninstalling or removing the VC2.5 users then importing the ESX into the new VC4.0?

As soon as the ESX is over in vCenter 4.0, it has VMotion and all the fancy stuff that is broken in our current VC2.5 setup.

When the hosts are over, they are also going to be wiped and setup from scratch with ESX 4.0 Update 1 + firmware upgrades, which they sadly not have been treated with for a long time.

Thanks in advance for all replies!

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Troy_Clavell
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a simple disconnect/remove from existing vCenter. Then add host into the new. When you add host, it will upgrade the vpx agent and reconfigure for HA.

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RParker
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After Google'ing a bit, I found that this is however not the easiest of tasks when I can not shut down the guests during the transistion.

well it's not difficult, what you describe is the only way to do it (with no downtime). So you can disconnect a host, and reconnect it to another vCenter without losing VM's or downtime.

TheFlyingCorpse
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Ah, so it IS doable? I read somewhere I had to uninstall VMware-vpxa-... and LGTO-.... something before importing to the new VC.

It is enough to disconnect from existing VC then do a normal import in the new one?

Cheers 😃

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Troy_Clavell
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a simple disconnect/remove from existing vCenter. Then add host into the new. When you add host, it will upgrade the vpx agent and reconfigure for HA.

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