Renaming a host in an HA Cluster - SAN repercussions?

[msnoakesy]

Hello,

I'm hoping for some advice please. We need to rename an ESXi host that's part of a HA cluster connected to a SAN - we use standard vSwitches only. I've read through VMware documentation regarding the process, but I want to be sure that there will be no repercussions with corruption to storage. The process as I understand it involves taking the host out of the cluster - obviously this would mean no running VMs - and then removing from vCenter, but does this eliminate all write operations to the SAN and any chance of corruption? Does putting the host into maintenance mode prevent any such risk?

Obviously we could just disable the connection to the SAN, but I would like to understand our options and their consequences.

Any advice will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Matt

[rcporto]

Unless I'm missing something, there is not risk to your SAN... but if you're using iSCSI, you may need to check your iSCSI initiator configuration due the fact that IQN is based on host hostname.

For additional details, see: VMware KB: Changing the name of an ESX or ESXi host

The iSCSI Qualified Name used for iSCSI storage configuration is based on the hostname of the ESX host. If you are facing storage connectivity issue after changing the hostname of the ESX/ESXi host, make sure to review your iSCSI software initiator configuration. For more information about iSCSI troubleshooting, see Configuring and troubleshooting basic software iSCSI setup (1008083).

[cliffcahill]

I have done this recently to co-inside with Domain name change on a host

Updated the DNS records disconnected the host and then removed the host, added in the host with the new FQDN  and all worked away fine.

I didnt even have to move the VM Workload off the Host.