connect esx3.5 from VI 2.5 to VC4.1

[Masl]

Hello!

The production environment consists of 3 x ESX 3.5 (latest patch level) connected to VMware Infrastructure 2.5 (physical hardware).

What I'm planning to do is, disconnect the ESX servers from VMI and connect them to VC 4.1, rotate VMs via VMotion to free one ESX after the other and install fresh ESXi 4.1 servers. A vMA is already waiting on the fourth, not yet operative, host. The data stores reside on iSCSI storages and the vSwitches used are standard ones - no dvSwitches. The hosts have enough RAM to consolidate the VMs to free up at least one host. VMs will not be moved across data stores while the procedure in ongoing.

I already tried that procedure with one RHEL5 and one WS2003 server and it worked like a charm (=no system crashed).

Tbh, I’m not working with VMware 24/7 and that's way I'm asking you guys.

Is there anything that I might have forgotten / need to consider when doing this with live VMs (some web/application/db servers - Linux/windows)

Shutting the VMs down just in no option, at least for 6-8 VM, the rest of the VMs (~40) might be shut down, but require a maintenance window.

Thank you in advance

Best regards,

Masl

[Troy_Clavell]

I think you plan is a good one.  Doing it this way you should encure no downtime.  Just make sure you leave your VI3 license server online during the migration.

[Masl]

Thank you Troy!

I already virtualized the VM license server (same name different IP) - cause I need the hardware 🙂

It will be online during the first stage, just as long as I need to setup a the vCenter.

Thank you for your input.

Best regards,

Masl