Hi all,
My company recently provided me with a VMWare vSphere 4 Essentials
license, including the vCenter Server license. I have been running an
evaluation of ESXi 3.5 and have several VMs I'd like to transition to a
new ESXi 4.0 host. So far, everything I've tried won't let it happen,
so I'm looking for options.
Here's what I've tried so far:
1) Looked to see if there's a way to copy directly from ESXi 3.5 host
to 4.0 host -- no dice; ESXi only supports iSCSI, FiberChannel, and NFS
shares. The ESXi datastore itself doesn't seem to be able to be set up
as an NFS share. Nothing in the VI client shows a way to copy directly
from one server to another without the use of vCenter.
2) Installed our licensed copy of vCenter Server and tried to connect
both hosts. The ESXi 4.0 host comes up just fine (obviously), whereas
there does not seem to be a way to connect the 3.5 host without the VI3
License Server. Looked for a trial version of VI3 software to download,
but there isn't any available for me to download. The free evaluation
license doesn't seem to allow me to download the Virtual Center Server
installation media (since it's not licensed), even just on a trial
basis. Without the License Server (and presumably a valid VI3 license
for the 3.5 host), I can't use vCenter.
3) Tried to upgrade the 3.5 host to 4.0, then use vCenter -- This would
have worked, except for the reason we installed 3.5 in the first place:
our older hardware does not support 4.0 installation.. so obviously
(and humorously) we found that an upgrade won't work either.
(Humorously because we'd forgotten about the lack of hardware support).
4) So, lastly, it seems that I'll have to use an intermediate machine
to copy down the VMs, then upload them to the new server -- unless
there is an option I missed. Which brings us to my question...
Did I miss any options for moving VMs directly between a free 3.5 ESXi host and a licensed 4.0 host?
Lastly, a plea to VMWare devs -- can we make some sort of one-shot or
trial time period ability within vCenter 4.0 to connect to older
clients just so those who are actually upgrading to the new version can
do it fairly seamlessly? I realize this might be a small subset of your
userbase, those going from free 3.5 to a licensed 4.0, but I'd
certainly have appreciated it today.
