vMotion between two vCenter Servers

[sel57]

From what I've read so far, it looks like this isn't possible, but I just wanted to ask to make sure.

Is it possible to live migrate a vm located on a host managed by "vCenter Server A" to another host managed by "vCenter Server B"? All of our subnets and storage is exactly the same (we have our own hosts and storage, but it's just all managed under one vCenter Server right now). We're just trying to completely segregate our hosts and vm's from an outsourcer who took over the virtual environment (except for what my team manages)

I have a feeling this requires down time, which is unfortunate because that means it will take an extremely long time to coordinate and schedule all this work. Figured it was worth asking though...

Thanks.

[a_p_]

Unfortunately (unless I missed a recent change) it's only possible to vMotion VMs within the same "Datacenter". What you could do to avoid downtime is to temporarily move the VM's you want to vMotion to a dedicated host, remove this host from your vCenter Server and add it to the other one. Assuming the hardware is compatible you can then vMotion the VM's to other hosts and once add the host back to the original vCenter Server.

André

[sel57]

Hi a.p.

Thanks for the response. The good news is I wouldn't have to add any hosts back. These hosts I am moving are also ours, so when I pull them out of the first vCenter and put them into ours, I don't have to put them back.

I didn't realize you could remove a host that wasn't in maintenance mode or with vm's on it. If that's the case, then would there be any downtime at all? That sounds ideal.

[a_p_]

I did something similar last week while upgrading a 4.0 environment. I installed vCenter 5.1, then disconnected and removed the hosts from the old vCenter (without first disconnecting you will be prompted to place the host in maintenance mode) and finally added them to the new vCenter Server without downtime for the VMs.

André

[sel57]

Perfect. Disconnect, remove, add host to new vCenter. Thank you so much!

[a_p_]

Just to ensure you don't run into issues. I did the above with Standard vSwitches!

André