Configure ESX3.5 in VC 4.0(Vsphere)

[Raghukalloor]

Hello All,

Presently we have 2 Datacenters. One is old one and another is new one.

Old datacenter is having VC 2.5 and ESX3.5 and have around 30VM's.

New datacenter is having VC4.0 and ESX 4.0 and have no VM's.

My requirement is I need to move all the VM's from Old datacenter to New Datacenter. How can i go with it? Please suggest.

Can i remove the ESX host (3.5) from old datacenter and configure it in New datacenter and migrate all the VM's to new ESX host 4.0. Is it possible ? please suggest.

Thanks n advance

[synot]

Hello, there is an answer for your question in your question... Of course, you can remove your ESX 3.5 hosts from old datacenter and get them to the new one...

[AntonVZhbankov]

Yes, you can. vCenter 4.0 fully supports ESX 3.5

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VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[uushaggy]

Yep, you can remove the host from the old DC, then add to the new DC. Now you can migrate the VMs to a esx 4.0 host and upgrade the old esx host. Once the VMs are on the esx 4.0 server you can upgrade VMTools and then VM hardware and you'll be good. VM upgrades for Windows VMs will require a few restarts, so plan accordingly.

[Raghukalloor]

Thanks to all for the suggestion. Had one more query with regards to storage part.

Old Datacenter is having all the VM's(vmdk) in SAN and the new datacenter is having Netapp Storage configured. how would we go with it?

Will SAN be compatible with Netapp storage ? Do we need to configure anything else.

Thanks

[TobiasKracht]

You will be need to update VmTools because virtual hardware 4 will be automatically converted to version 7.

StarWind Software R&D

[Raghukalloor]

Hi,

I Couldn't understand it. Could you please brief me more in depth what needs to be done?

thanks

[TobiasKracht]

You can just copy and import VM`s files in to the new DC or using vCenter Infrastructure change destination of VM`s.

What is your SAN and what do you under "compatible with NetApp"?

StarWind Software R&D

[AntonVZhbankov]

Tobias, virtual hardware will NOT be converted to version 7 automatically. The only way to upgrade VM hardware from version 4 to version 7 - to do it manually for each VM.

---

VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[TobiasKracht]

Try to do it I imported`em into ESX 4 recently, and they were upgraded to VH 7

StarWind Software R&D

[krowczynski]

If you are using VUM, you can create baseline, that will make the update of vm tools and hardware easily!

MCP, VCP

[AntonVZhbankov]

Did you use VMware Converter to import? Even so you can choose whether convert VM to HW ver 7 or not.

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MCP, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[uushaggy]

Tobias may be right, but I haven't tried that yet. If you are "Importing" via vCenter (ala VMware Converter) then yes virtual hardware could be upgraded.

I usually setup a Host Upgrade Baseline to upgrade host and then create a Baseline Group to upgrade both VMtools and VM Hardware fro the VMs. Update Manager makes the process pretty easy. Of course this is really how I do "in-place" upgrades.

Since you have two different DCs and two different SANs, which I assume are not visable to each Datacenter (best practice), then Importing is one way to approach this.

dave

[AntonVZhbankov]

>If you are "Importing" via vCenter (ala VMware Converter) then yes virtual hardware could be upgraded.

There is difference between "you can upgrade vHardware during import" and "vHardware is upgraded automatically".

If you do not use Converter and just upgrade your ESXes nothing in VMs is upgraded automatically. You can do you upgrade without any service downtime using VMotion to migrate VMs.

VMotion between ESX 3.5 and 4.0 works perfectly, and it requires vHardware 4.

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MCP, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[uushaggy]

Agreed.

Just to clarify:

You can do you upgrade without any service downtime using VMotion to migrate VMs.

This means no downtime to the ESX host. VMs will still require some downtime to upgrade tools and hardware though however you decide to do it.

[AntonVZhbankov]

>>You can do you upgrade without any service downtime using VMotion to migrate VMs.

>This means no downtime to the ESX host. VMs will still require some downtime to upgrade tools and hardware though however you decide to do it.

No. You can do it without downtime to VM. Downtime for ESX is required - it reboots after upgrade.

VM ver 4 work perfectly on ESX 4, VMware Tools upgrade can be scheduled to suitable time, VM hardware upgrade is not required.

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MCP, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[TobiasKracht]

Anton, you know, I found the possible underluying reason: my VMs with VH4 were created in Workstation 6.5.x, and then imported into ESX 4. Therefore it must be were converted. A little bit later I`ll boot up an ESX 3.5 server to check it out.

StarWind Software R&D

[uushaggy]

Ok, I think we're saying the same thing in different ways.

You can upgrade ESX with no downtime to the VMs and you do not need to upgrade the VMs at the same time.

When you decide to upgrade the VMs there will be some downtime incurred to reboot (Windows VM). With Linux is is possible to proceed without rebooting in some cases.

As I'm sure you know but I'll iterate for the others, the vSphere upgrade process can be approached as a phased approach allowing each step to be done as time permits:

-Upgrade vCenter

-Upgrade ESX host

-Upgrade VMtools

-Upgrade vHardware

Of course for those who are new to the topic see the "vSphere Upgrade Guide" for more info on all this.

[AntonVZhbankov]

uushaggy, yes, exactly.

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MCP, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[AntonVZhbankov]

>my VMs with VH4 were created in Workstation 6.5.x, and then imported into ESX 4. Therefore it must be were converted.

Therefore they must be processed by Converter, but if you created VM as ESX3.5 compatible, you can convert VM from WS to ESX hw ver 4. And you can use it on 3.5.

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MCP, MCTS, VCP, VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru