Hello,
We currently have 2 vSphere clusters, each managed by its own vcenter.
- Cluster 1, vCenter 4.0, managing 4 production ESXi 4.0 and a total of ~80 Vms
- Cluster 2, vCenter 4.1, managing 4 "new" production ESXi4.1, and only ~10VMs
The 2 clusters have HA and DRS enabled, have similar if not identical NW configurations, using distributed vswitchs for VMs, and do not share Storage.
We need to merge Cluster 1 with Cluster 2, meaning eventually having Cluster 2 managed by vCenter 4.1, with 8 ESXi4.1 and all the VMs. (vCenter 4.0 will be decomissionned)
I am wondering about the best way to go about this, in order to minimize the downtime.
My intuitive method would be :
- Present all Cluster1 datastores to Cluster2
- For every ESX 4.0 in Cluster 1 :
-For every VM on ESX :
- Shutdown VM, remove from Cluster1 inventory, Add to Cluster 2 inventory, Upgrade HW, Start VM, Upgrade VM Tools, reboot
-Once ESX 4.0 Empty:
-reinstall with ESX 4.1, add to Cluster 2
- Once all ESX migrated, Load balance VMs accross cluster
Does that make sense ?
IS it risky to present production datastores with running VMs to the ESXi4.1 hosts ?
Is there a better/easier way to do things, for example a method that would allow vMtionning live VMs to the Cluster2 ?
Many thanks in advance
