Migrating ESX 4 and 3.5 hosts to new vCenter Server 4.0

[Hurleyinnh]

I am setting up a new vCenter Server 4.0 with an Oracle database to take the place of two vCenter’s that use the included express databases. They are both well over the recommended 5 hosts and 50 vm’s for the express database, oops.

The first is vCenter 4.0 that uses the included express database is on a Dell 1950 server. The ESX 4.0 hosts are on 2 clusters on Dell blade servers that have 5 blades per cluster and are using EqualLogic iSCSI storage arrays for the datastores. Plus there are a few individual Dell R900 and Dell R710 servers using local storage connected to this vCenter.

The second is vCenter 2.5 that uses the included express database running on a Dell 2950 server with like 20 other Dell 2950’s running ESX 3.5 using local storage.

Looking for a little insight and advise migrating hosts to the new vCenter Server.

Thanks … Jim Hurley

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

I would say the easiest way would be to create new new vCenter Host OS ( I would choose 64bit which will get you within the requirements for 4.1). Once the new vCenter Server is online, I would then install a standalone license server for your VI3 Hosts, then start disconnecting and removing the hosts from the other environments and into the new.

Stand alone license server can be found

http://downloads.vmware.com/d/details/esx_35_licenseserver_dt/dGViZGVoKmJqQA==

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Forums - It all depends on whether you want to maintain any information from the previous environments - if not then build the new vCenter server remove the existing hosts form the old vCenter environments and add them to the new environment -

This document should also provide additional information -http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf particularly section 5

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