I'm sure this scenario is not uncommon, but I just want to make sure I'm putting it all together straight. We've had VI3 running on 3 hosts connected to an EQ San for a couple of years. We installed 3 new vsphere hosts on ESXi 4.1 in another building and connected to a new san. We have Virtual Center 2.5 on the old environment and vcenter server on the new one.
We created a new datacenter and cluster in vsphere, and new datastores on the new san. We moved our web server VMs by shutting them down, unregistering them from old hosts, copying vm files to new datastores and registering with new hosts. We're keeping file servers on the current hosts, so here's my plan for upgrading the older hosts:
- Create a new DC and Cluster with the new vcenter (some datastore names are the same, so can't use same DC; no need to move VMs between clusters)
- Shut down old virtual center server (a question about this in a minute)
- Add hosts to new vcenter
- Move all VMs off one host and disconnect it
- Clean install of ESXi on that host
- Reconfigure host with previous settings for networking, etc
- Add host back into new cluster and reconnect to datastores
- Migrate VMs to new host and repeat process for other 2 hosts
If I haven't customized my cluster (defaults for HA and DRS), can I just shut down the old virtual center and add the hosts to the new vcenter? Or will that screw with the licensing (or something else)?
Thanks.
From a quick look at the steps your plan looks good.
Just some points (you may have considered these anyhow):
Regarding licensing. I would just shutdown the Virtual Center service on the old server and let the license server service run until migration is done. This way you can add a reference to the old license server to the vCenter Server 4.1 licensing (e.g. 27000@old-server.local) configuration. Otherwise you would need to setup the license server for the ESX 3.5 hosts on e.g. the new vCenter Server.
André
Thanks, Andre. Yup, I checked the vmfs compatibility and it's not supposed to be a problem to use vmfs 3.31 with vsphere 4.1. I did find this tidbit from another thread, though:
- Cannot increase the size of a 3.31 vmfs datastore in vsphere 4.1. The button in the datastore properties dialog is greyed out.
- A new 3.46 datastore can be increased.
So I may create new datastores anyway and move the VMs to them.
Thanks also for the tip on the license service.
When talking about compatibility, I was actually thinking of the storage system compatibility itself and whether it is supported by ESXi 4.1.
As for the VMFS format you don't need to worry, there are only minor changes in the VMFS file system itself, the major changes were done in the VMFS driver, so you can benefit from them without the need to upgrade the datastores.
Cannot increase the size of a 3.31 vmfs datastore in vsphere 4.1. The button in the datastore properties dialog is greyed out
I've seen this behavior a couple of times. If you want to grow a VMFS datastore with an older VMFS version, you may be able to do it while directly connected to an ESXi host. The options are only grayed out when connected to the vCenter Server.
André
OK, the EQ san checks out on the compatibility matrix. I don't really need to grow any datastores right now, but I'm sure I'll need to in the future. I'll also have a fair amount of space soon since the web VMs got moved over. Sometime after the upgrade, I can destroy an old vacated datastore and create a new one the size I want, then down a VM and move it plus the vm files to the new larger datastore, right? In other words, there's not a problem having 2 datastores with different vmfs versions on one SAN as long as the san is supported, is that right?
You won't have issues with different VMFS versions. That's actually a common situation in a lot of companies.
André
"Regarding licensing. I would just shutdown the Virtual Center service on the old server and let the license server service run until migration is done. This way you can add a reference to the old license server to the vCenter Server 4.1 licensing (e.g. 27000@old-server.local) configuration."
I disconnected one of the old hosts from the old cluster and tried to add it to a cluster in vcenter, but I got an error message about licensing when I tried to add. I have the vcenter license server set to 27000@ipaddress of old virtualcenter. I guess I also need to check the box to "Reconfigure ESX 3 hosts..."?
I have this nightmare that the new vcenter will think that because it's in eval mode, the old licenses won't be properly recognized and will stop working. I should stop worrying, right?
Oh well, I had my fun with 3.5 licensing ![]()
Checking the "Reconfigure ..." checkbox is necessary, if the host does not know its license server settings anymore (maybe caused by disconnecting). You may verify the license configuration for the host by connecting to it directly.
André
OK, good deal. Thanks.
