VMware Cloud Community
Hurleyinnh
Contributor
Contributor

Migrating ESX 4 and 3.5 hosts to new vCenter Server 4.0

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

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.

Thanks … Jim Hurley

Tags (2)
Reply
0 Kudos
3 Replies
jamesbowling
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

I am not sure about ability to migrate data from SQLExpress to Oracle but are there things that you would like to move over or would you rather start the database out fresh? If you want to start it fresh then I would recommend the following:

  1. Remove one host from your old vCenter.

  2. Add host from old vCenter to your new vCenter. (You will be asked about the VMs currently running on the host.)

  3. Rinse and repeat for the rest of your 4.x hosts.

  4. Configure the3.5 licensing portion in your new vCenter server.

  5. Remove host from your old VirtualCenter.

  6. Add host from old VirtualCenter to your new vCenter.

  7. Rinse and repeat for the rest of your 3.5 hosts.

  8. Remove individual hosts from old vCenter/VirtualCenter.

  9. Add individual hosts to new vCenter.

  10. Rinse and repeat for the individual hosts.

I may be missing some stuff here but that is the gist of the process and starting fresh.

If you found this at all helpful please award points by using the correct or helpful buttons! Thanks!

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
Reply
0 Kudos
jamesbowling
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

You might want to check out this post as well:

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1267083#1267083

It talks about migrating from MSSQL to Oracle 10g.

If you found this at all helpful please award points by using the correct or helpful buttons! Thanks!

James B. | Blog: http://www.vSential.com | Twitter: @vSential --- If you found this helpful then please awards helpful or correct points accordingly. Thanks!
Reply
0 Kudos
Hurleyinnh
Contributor
Contributor

Thank you for the help! Yes we are going to build up the new database from scratch, no migrating.

Reply
0 Kudos