How to move ESXi/ESX host from one vCenter Server to another
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Article ID: 312551
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Updated On:
Products
VMware vCenter ServerVMware vSphere ESXi
Issue/Introduction
This article provides instructions to move a managed ESXi/ESX host from one vCenter Server to another vCenter Server.
Considerations prior to migration:
VMware recommends you review ESX\ESXi hosts with distributed switches migration plans. See these articles to migrate the host to standard switches prior to migrating them to a new vCenter Server:
The High Availability setting must be recreated on the new vCenter Server prior to host migration.
DRS must be set to manual or disabled prior to moving the ESX/ESXi host. DRS settings must be created on the destination vCenter Server. This also removes resource pools from the ESXi/ESX host. For more information, see Disabling VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) (1007655). Important: If you are using VMware vCloud Director or VMware Horizon View, do not disable DRS. Configure DRS to manual to preserve the existing Resource Pools.
After migrating a host you may experience an MKS console issue in VM's and they may require a refresh the VMX/MKS SSL cache. To mitigate against this the host should be placed in maintenance mode before migrating to a different vCenter Server, see "Unable to connect to MKS" error in vSphere Web Client.
To move an ESXi/ESX host from one vCenter Server to another, remove the host from the vCenter Server then add the host to a new vCenter Server. This operation does not affect the state of any virtual machines running on the ESXi/ESX as long as the prerequisites are met. The historical performance data of both the ESXi/ESX and its virtual machines will be purged.