Move ESXi Host to new vCenter 8

[ChrisPope80]

I just wanted to get some information/opinions on my plan.  If it's a horrible idea just tell me or if there's an easier way I'm all ears.

I'm wanting to move my ESXi host and all the VMs they host over to a brand new VCSA.  I currently have the most recent vCenter 7 and I've built a new vCenter 8 that I would like to attach my host to.  I know there's a way to just import the database into the new one but my focus is to keep the New vCenter as clean as possible and not pull in any old stuff from the Old one.  Downtime is not an issue cause I'm thinking I'll do the majority of this over a weekend when I can bring everything down gracefully for the move.

My current setup is pretty small.  I have three clusters, one is a vSAN that has three host that all my production VM servers are on.

The other two are for Horizon VDIs that use NetApp for their storage, one has Instant Clones on 5 Host and the other has Persistent VDIs on 3 Hosts.

I'm using distributed switches with a couple dozen port groups.  Most of my licenses are still on 7 stuff so I know I will have to upgrade them on the new VCSA 8.

On the new VCSA 8, I've already created the appropriate clusters and the DSwitch and Port Groups.  The DSwitch is named different on the New VCSA as not to cause a conflict, but the portgroups are for the most part named the same as they are on the old VCSA.

So, it's my understanding that I can power down all my VM's on my host, disable DRS and HA on the clusters,  put the host in Maintenance mode, remove them from the cluster they are in on the old VCSA then add them to the appropriate clusters on the new VCSA.  Is this right?  At that point I would need to setup networking on all of the host based on the new DSwitch on the new VCSA 8, then I could reattach the NetApp Nodes to the new VCSA, enable HA and DRS on the clusters, select the right portgroups for all my VMs then power on the VMs.  Correct?

I'm thinking at that point all my VM servers will come back online.  Instant clone pools will get rebuilt and I can power on my persistent VDIs and everything will be LIVE on the new VCSA 8.  Then I could use Lifecycle Manager to update the host to ESXi 8.

Does this plan sound good?  Am I missing anything?  Is there an easier way to go about this or should I not do this at all?

[Maksym Roshchyna]

May I ask, why not to update vCenter 7 to vCenter8?

 

[ChrisPope80]

I took over the VM role from a coworker who left.  He was not 100% sure what he was doing when he set everything up and built 6.5.  I have since updated to 6.7 then 7, but all the crap he did get carried over when I do an upgrade.  So I've built new "clean" vCenter 8 appliances to move my host and VMs over to.

Because of what he did I've always had cert issues and issues with patching vCenter, so I just wanted a clean slate going to vCenter 8.

[a_p_]

I would rather do some cleanup if required, and use the upgrade path with the solutions (vSAN, vDS, Horizon) that are involved.

André

[ChrisPope80]

Doing that doesn't allow me to normalize my two VCSA's.  The new ones have different names than the old and I've also normalized the names of all my portgroups.  Right now they are not consistent at all.  Also, my two VCSAs are not linked, which I have already done with the two new ones.

I know what I'm suggesting is not the most ideal, but my OCD has me really wanting to get them normalized and cleaned up, even if it requires a good bit of work to get it done.

[Maksym Roshchyna]

I hope that after your upgrade to vCenter8 there will be no issues.