Moving ESXI to new gears (Server and SAN)

[jpkitguy]

Hi all,

I am planning to move our ESXI 6.5 hosts to new Servers (7.0). Can you please advise me of the best practice?

I had done migration previously which was with the same version, no issues.

Wondering, am I able to backup the ESXI 6.5 config and restore it on the new server (Esxi 7.0)?

I tried it in my dev lab, it didn't work even after changing UUID. I would appreciate your suggestions/comments.

Vcenter version is 6.5

Cheers

[daphnissov]

The only thing you will be able to move are the VMs themselves as this is really what matters. Backup and restoring ESXi across versions will not work.

[jpkitguy]

Thanks for the prompt response. Esxi 6.5 has a few port groups, that's why I wanted to do the backup and restore process, looks like that won't work.

I didn't want to add port groups manually for every host. Unfortunately, I could not find any commands/procedure to export network settings of the host.

[daphnissov]

If these hosts are currently joined to a vCenter and the new hosts will be as well, you could script the process using PowerCLI (web search for existing scripts).

[nachogonzalez · Accepted solution]

Hey, the process would be something like this:

1. Upgrade your vCenter (since vcenter 6.5 can't manage ESXi 7.0 hosts)
2. Install hosts
3. Add the hosts to a new cluster on vCenter (it is very important that all hosts have the same hardware)
4. Zone the hosts and create the VMFS6 datastores.
6. Configure networking accordingly.  Also, you can export the actual vDS configuration and import it on a new vDS.

More or less that's the process,

HOpe this works

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[daphnissov]

This assumes the OP is using a vDS, which sounds like isn't the case here.

[nachogonzalez]

Yes, else might be able to use host profiles.

[daphnissov]

Which requires Enterprise Plus which also comes with vDS which then wouldn't be having this issue.