Migration from 3.5 Foundation to 4.1 Essentials Plus

[stephorn]

Ok - here is my situation:

We have an existing VMware Foundation server with 3 ESX v3.5U2 and a single ESXi v3.5U2 server (not on vCenter).

- Everything is stored on DAS on each server.

We are installing a new NetApp SAN and along with this we purchased Essentials Plus and 3 new HP servers.

What I want to do is have a zero down-time migration. I believe that I can use SVmotion/VMotion to do this but I don't know the licensing restrictions???

My concern is that there is zero VMotion licensing in the old 3.5 Foundation license, Essential Plus does have vMotion but does it also contain SVMotion?

- With SVMotion being commandline only in v3.5 was this a licensed option or just something that works regardless of ESX edition?

Another option could be to un-register the ESX 3.5 servers from vCenter and license them to a new vCenter 4 evaluation license? Can this be done - register 3.5 to vCenter 4 in Evaluation mode without the server shutting down due to a loss of license key?

All I want to do is migrate from the old to the new without having to have large amounts of downtime to move the VMDK files.

I'm not wanting to violate any licensing restrictions with this either, but I don't understand the differences between the old licenses and the new Essentials licenses either. So, I am asking for a little help.

Has anyone done this before with a 3.5 Foundation to a new 4.1 Essentials Plus?

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great.

Thanks Everyone,

Andy

abradley@reawire.com

[FranckRookie · Accepted solution]

Hi Andy,

You can have a look at this kb for details about VMware licenses comparison.

Even if you have necessary licenses, it is very difficult to move VMs without any downtime in a configuration such as yours. You need to have all ESXs in the same EVC cluster. But adding a single host in such a cluster requires stopping its VMs...

Good luck.

Regards

Franck

[AndreTheGiant]

Essential Plus include vMotion, but NOT Storage vMotion.

You can use the trial mode period to use this feature to migrate your VM...

But the vCenter is limited to only 3 hosts, so you have to build a cluster with 2 new node, attach a old one, configure it to see also the NetApp storage, perform a Storage vMotion of all VMs, then disconnect this host, add another old and so on...

After all VMs are on the new environment you have to plan a downtime for them to update first the VMware Tools and then (if needed) the virtual hardware.

Andre

[ealaqqad]

As AndreTheGiant suggested you can use trial licenses on the new ESX servers, though one modification might be to create a new vCenter & use the trial license on it so it does not have the 3 servers restriction on it. Move all the servers under it move the VMS then apply the licenses.

Both of AndreTheGiant & my suggested way above are valid & quite similar, though a bit of tweek between both.

I hope this help some one, if it does please reward points.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com

Founder of http://www.TSMGuru.com