Migrating hosts and VM's to new VC

[gheywood]

Hello,

We have vCenter 4.0, and vSphere 4.0 hosts, with SRM installed. We want to migrate to vCenter 4.1 (and then upgrade vSphere and SRM), but we also need to change domains (and obviously move from a 32 bit to a 64 bit server platform). As I am not too concerned about historical data (just a few permissions here and there on the DR site), I am planning on building new VC’s, creating new folders and clusters, and then simply removing the existing vSphere hosts from the current environment and adding them into the new one. Obviously leaving all VM’s running.

Any flaws in this? Anything I need to be aware of?

Can I remove hosts from a cluster while not in maintenance mode? Or will I need to put the host in maintenance mode, remove it from the cluster, and then move the VM’s to the new host, load it up, and then do a “Remove”?

Any other issues?

[Mouhamad]

Hello,

I can't see a better scenario than the one that you proposed. This is exactly what I would do in your place.

As for removing the hosts from the clusters, you need to put it in maintenance mode. You can do all this live and you don't require a downtime (vMotion machines to diffrent hosts and do one at the time).

I'd advise you not to do it during working hours specially if you have a many hosts with HA and DRS enabled since for unlucky reasons you might have agents stuck on something like that. But so far no issues.

Good luck

Mouhamad

[MauroBonder]

check best practices http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=102210... and upgrade guide to more details