vCenter 5.5 rebuild Question

[bbb123]

Hi all - I have inherited a VMware 5.5 platform, the vCenter services are across about 6 servers - all roles like SSO, Inventory etc are on individual servers.  It's only a small environment and I feel this is a bit of an overkill and is costing more in Windows licenses etc.

I intend to rebuild the vcenter server to have all services on one server, this is how I intend to do it - can anyone see and gotchas?

stop all services on all servers

uninstall vCenter service & reboot

Install vCenter with all components on the original vcenter server box (so it will be the same IP & hostname)

Copy over the original SSL certs & change the unique ID to the original

Is that it?

[vfk · Accepted solution]

Are starting clean install?  or are you keeping the existing vcenter database?  If you are not planning to keep any of the old server vcenter, then you can just a build a new server with all services installed, make sure you spec your VM accordingly, recreate your clusters, discount esxi hosts from old vcenter and connect to new vcenter. 

If you want to keep existing database, reinstall vcenter and keep existing database + VMware KB: Re-pointing and re-registering VMware vCenter Server 5.1 / 5.5 and components There is little point in copy over the ssl certificates if they are self-signed.

[bbb123]

Thanks - I rebuilt the server today with no issues.  I've built many vCenter boxes but just wanted to do a quick check - I've actually never seen all the services across different servers before.  I know this is a valid configuration but for a small platform I think it's way over the top!

Also, if you are going to separate the services I think it's a good idea to at least keep Inventory and Web Client on the same box - they work together after all!

Thank you for taking the time to respond.

[vfk]

You are spot on, that is just overkill.  Keep it simple and easy to manage.

Just for reference When to Centralize vCenter Single Sign-On Server 5.5 | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs