How to move 2.5 Guests to 3.5

[awhit]

Hi there,

I have an ESX 2.5 host that has 4 or 5 guests running on local storage. We've set up a new 3.5 environment with 2 ESX servers, VC 2.5, and SAN storage. What is the easiest way to get the guest machines off the 2.5 local storage? Our thought was to shut down the guests and manually copy the machines files from the 2.5 host to the 3.5 storage with wscp or other similar app. But that would involve two copies. Is there any way to pull the files from the 2.5 ESX host directly to the 3.5 host?

Thanks in advance for your help!

-Adam

[admin]

Have you considered having both hosts in the same DataCenter, power down then right click then migrate....then upgrade virtual hardware/VMtools

[awhit]

I did consider that, but wasn't 100% sure there would not be an issue with the 2.5 host in a 3.5 environment. I thought I had read somewhere that a 2.5 host in a 2.5 VC was not a good idea. I want to say it had something to do with the VMFS being different (fogive me, I can't remember where).

They other issue I failed to mention, is that I don't have an open port on my SAN Switch to fiber up the 2.5 host. If I try to vmotion off the 2.5 local storage without a fiber connection, will it migrate over the network to the 3.5 host?

[williamarrata]

Actuall, using WinSCP is a pretty good Idea. This way you can copy it to the new LUN, add inventory, start the vm, upgrade vmtools and you should be up and running. If there is an issue, you still have the original and plan another way, like using VMWare Converter. This can also move VM's as you wish to where you want.

Hope that helped.

[awhit]

If I move using WINcsp don't I have to copy it off the 2.5 server to an intermediary server then again from that server to the 3.5 host storage? Assuming winscp is running on a MS box, am I able to copy directly from one ESX host to the other without doing 2 copy jobs?

[admin]

Yeah you right, but for migration its fine - I've just done 16 guests today... WinSCP no thanks really I have suffered corruption, I think in the early days we called this DMotion...;00)