Moving port groups from one vSwitch to another

[Hanbin]

Is there a quick way to migrate a port group from an existing vSwitch to a new vSwitch? Or is the only option to move all hosts out of the port group, delete it, and then manually recreate it on the new vSwitch?

Am working on reconfiguring the virtual networking of ESX 3.5 boxes due to added NIC's and physical networking resources and the ability to move the existing port groups would make the reconfiguring much easier.

[khughes · Accepted solution]

To my knowledge you can't "move" a portgroup from one vSwitch to another so I would assume you will have to delete that portgroup and rebuild it. The other option (I don't know how much you're reconfiguring) is to move the physical NICs around to the correct portgroups as long as it isnt the SC if that is easier

• Kyle

[Hanbin]

That's what I was afraid of. Basically we had everything (VMKernel, SC, VM machines) on one switch due to physical network limitations. Now that those limitations have been fixed, I want to move SC and VMKernel to their own vSwitch (or leave them on current and move all the rest of the port groups) to a new vSwitch.

Oh well, guess its going to be a manual process.

[khughes]

Well you can leave the SC connected to the same physical nics they are now (unless you're changing subnets or other restrictions) and then just add the nics and move around what you already had configured to the new nics?

• Kyle

[Jasemccarty]

Have you seen the port group plugin?

http://www.virtualization.info/2008/02/tool-add-port-groups-plug-in-for-vmware.html

It might be able to help you.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center

(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach