Another consideration revolves around the use of virtual distributed switches (vDS’s). If the VMs in the source vCenter utilize vDS’s, then you need to make sure the same vDS exists in the destination vCenter server.

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Otherwise, you will import the ESXi hosts and not be able to move your VMs around at all due to identifier mis-matches. With vSphere 5.1+ you can utilize PowerCLI or the Web Client to export / import your vDS configuration (making sure check the “Preserve original distributed switch and port group identifiers” option). Hi William, Let’s say I have ESXi1 (running 5.0) using vDS’s and its being managed by vCenter1 (running 5.0) with 50 active VMs running. Is it possible to disconnect ESXi1 from vCenter1 and add it to a vCenter2 (running 5.5) without having issues with the running VMs?

The vDS configuration has been exported out of vCenter1 and imported onto vCenter2. Could I just simply migrate the active VMs off ESXi1 onto ESXi2 (running 5.5)? Basically, what’s the best way to migrate a lot VMs off the 5.0 environment onto the new 5.5 environment with virtual distributed switches?

One way is to power off a VM, remove it from inventory in 5.0 and register it in 5.5. But I have hundreds of VMs. What other options do I have? Your help is much appreciated and thanks! Hello William, do you know, how to migrate VMs between 2 vcenters using vDS? I already see some steps on other blogs, and they are using VDS to VSS and then back VDS migration. It represents a lot of work and I hope to accomplish this other easier way.

I didn’t see any workflow in vCO or cmdlet in powershell. I will explain my situation: due to several upgrades, my vCenter db performs bad, so I decided to start almost from scratch. I have deployed a new vCenter, clone VI structures (vm folders, roles, etc.) and now I would like to migrate VMs with minimal downtime (they are using vDS). There are ways to accomplish this without the use of vSS’s.

Specifically if you are on vSphere 5.1 or 5.5. You can export your existing vDS configuration from your old vCenter Server and then import it into your new vCenter. Make sure to preserve the identifiers though. Remember how vDS’s are designed to work. They continue to function even if their vCenter Server is offline. This means that after you disconnect a host from your old vCenter Server you can import it in your new environment and all VMs will continue to function properly during this transition. I will say, however, that even with the export/import you sometimes run into some anomalies in the new environment.

Specifically VMs state that they are connected to their respective portgroups, however, the vDS side of things does not show the connection. This is easily remedied by re-assigning your uplinks one-by-one from your hosts to the new vDS. This is also a non-disruptive action.

I am currently drafting a blog post on this very topic. “”Hello William, can you describe the effect of removing a vm from one vcenter then registering it in another vcenter? Are there issue with the vDS identifier in the new vcenter if it is powered off?”” William – your response was “No” to the above comment. Does that mean that there will be no issue with the vDS identifier? Also, what is the “best” method to move a large VM from one vCenter to another provided the vCenter versions are identical? The vCenters with their hosts are in geographically diverse datacenters but high-speed 10Gb links are in place between them. Thank you guys, at first sorry I am late.

Yes I have a powershell scirpt for Export/Iport vDS, including portgroups. However when I tested the migration, ESX couldn’t recognize VDS – of course it is from another vCenter.

Yes VM on that vDS still can comunicate even I see in the vSphere client on the VM network property “Invalid backing”. Is that behavior related to preserve the identifiers as wrote tjpatter? What kind of identifiers or what is the purpose?

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I serched powercli doc and there is a decription to param KeepIdentifiers: “You cannot specify this parameter, when the Name parameter is specified.” So I think it should work in my script. And Should I preserve old vCenter ID to use this param KeepIdentifiers in the script?

– it will be long time migration so I would like to avoid MAC addr. Conflict and setup differnt ID on the new vCenter. And yes, I can re-assign my uplinks to the new vDS, however what about VMs? – then I have to re-assign all VMs network property “Invalid backing” to the correct portgroup. Can you send me the list of tasks step by step?

I will appreciate it.