vCenter Server has inter-dependencies with other services. Care must be taken to not break any of these inter-dependencies. As with any major change in your infrastructure, good backups are essential in providing smooth, limited downtime changes.
To move your vCenter Server and SQL database:
- Verify and ensure that the Lockdown mode is disabled on hosts. To verify this, navigate to Host> Configuration> Security Profile> LockDown Mode.
Shutdown the VMware VirtualCenter Server service.
Take a backup of the SQL database.
If the SQL database is also being moved, create a second instance of your database and use the vendor's tools to migrate the data.
Note: If you are using an Oracle database, create a second instance of your database and migrate the Oracle database schema, vpxadmin. For more information regarding migrating oracle databases, contact your software vendor.If you are migrating a vCenter Server 4.x/5.x database, you must also migrate the ADAM database. You can migrate this database if the Windows versions in the source and the destination is the same. If not, vCenter might not operate properly and/or the client might fail during connection.
Create the appropriate System DSN connections on the new vCenter Server host.
- If the new VirtualCenter server uses the same hostname and IP address, the SSL certificates can be copied to the new server to eliminate the need to reconnect the ESXi/ESX hosts.
To copy the VirtualCenter Server SSL certificates:
- Create the this folder structure on the new server:
C:\ProgramData\VMware\VirtualCenter Server\SSL
- Copy the the these files from the original VirtualCenter server to the new server, preserving the folder structure:
- C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.key
- C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.pfx
- C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.crt
Begin the installation of the vCenter Server software on the new server. If you are installing vCenter Server in a virtual machine, see the vCenter Server and the vSphere Client Hardware Requirements section of the ESXi Installable and vCenter Server Setup Guide and Technical Resource Center for guidelines to deploy vCenter Server in a virtual machine, including sizing, installation, functionality, and configuration of VMware High Availability (HA).
When prompted, select Use existing database, and provide the correct credentials to that database.
When prompted, select to not re-initialize the database to preserve all of your inventory data.
- Reboot the machine after the installation completes.
- When you first start the vCenter Server Client, it may ask for licenses. Configure the licenses as you had previously in your environment. For more information about licensing for ESX hosts, see the Installation Guidefor your version of ESX. For more information about licensing for ESXi hosts, see the Setup Guidefor your version of ESXi. You are now able to see the same settings and configuration details.
- If the IP address of the new vCenter Server has changed, your ESX hosts must be made aware of that change, otherwise the ESX hosts will continue to send their heartbeats to the original IP address of vCenter Server and appear as Not Responding or Disconnected.
- Confirm that your SQL Agent rollup jobs are present. Detaching/attaching, importing, or restoring a database to a newer SQL server does not recreate these jobs. If these jobs are not present, there are problems viewing performance data and the database begins increasing in size.
- If vCenter Server is moved to another server with a fresh installation, the SSL certificates change and the ESX hosts show as disconnected within vSphere Client connected to vCenter Server. Right-click the disconnected hosts, click Connect, provide the root login credentials, and follow the prompts.