To move or not to move vCenter Server

[Labcoat]

We are small, only 2 VMware ESXi hosts housing about 30 VMs.  I bought RAM and need to add it to one of the hosts, meaning downtime.  Host B also houses our vCenter Server.  I know I can simply take it down and log into each host individually, but my question is:

Is there going to be any harm in changing either host by adding RAM and doing other hardware changes?  I only plan on adding RAM to it, but will also have to firmware it says the server manufacturer, to add the RAM.

To me, this will be far easier than trying to move the vCenter server VM using Veeam, which we have, to do replication or backup/restore.  To be honest, I do not backup the vCenter Server at all, since I know I can always log into each host individually.

I'm thinking once all done, vCenter will just come back up and see any changes on the other host and run fine.

[weinstein5]

Are you licensed for vMotion? If so just vMotioin the the vCenter VM to the other host - if you are not licensed for vMotion there will be no issue uograding the hosts and restarting them vCenter should just come right back up - you would not even need to move the vcenter vm before because as you pointed out you can manage the the hosts by connecting dirwectly to them.

[Labcoat]

We do not have shared storage or vMotion.  We hope to get some time -- funds.

Ok, that's what I thought. Thanks for replying.

[logiboy123]

You don't have to have vMotion to be able to migrate live VMs. You can obtain this functionality via PowerCLI, it's just a bit more work.

http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-10441

[adelisa]

Hi Labcoat ,

Is there going to be any harm in changing either host by adding RAM and doing other hardware changes?.

very rare problem comes like reactivation or asking for serial key .

please make sure you have proper backup for quick restoration or all the information like serial key and licence file.

" Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion."