Non-disruptive migration of ESX to new vCenter server.

[J_Wood]

What would be the recommended steps to complete a non-disruptive migration of an ESX host to a new vCenter server? I have been unsuccessful in finding any documentation on this. For some reason I seem to remember that with previous version of Virtual Center (1.x and 2.x) that the host had to be in maintenance mode before it could be removed from the management server.

I need to move ESX 3.5 and 4.0 hosts to a new vCenter 4.0.1 management server.

James Wood, VCP

Senior Systems Administrator | Arizona Department of Transportation | Phoenix, Arizona

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

you can simply disconnect and remove host. Then add host into new environment. This will not impact any of your running guests. If moving your VI3 Hosts, just ensure you have the license server available.

[RParker]

Disconnect host (right click disconnect).

Remove Host from old datacenter.

Login to host, run service mgmt-vmware restart.

wait for the host to calm down for a bit, then attach it the new vCenter.

You may get a complaint that it belongs to an older vCenter, ignore it.

That's pretty much it. It should work fine.

[weinstein5]

Things have gotten much with going form VI-3 to vSphere - since vCenter 4 can manage ESX 3.5 servers with no loss of duntionality - check out http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40_u1/vsp_40_u1_upgrade_guide.pdf for detailed steps on how to move to vSphere-

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[J_Wood]

Thanks for the quick response, I have begun to expect nothing less in these forums... And, yes: the license server for the ESX 3.x hosts is already in place.