I'm changing the entire infra like I've mentioned in the first email. New hosts, new LAN Switches, new SAN switches and new storage.
The current infra contains servers from a diferente generation than the new ones so I cannot join the new hosts to the current cluster (no vMotion) and that means downtime...
Considering all the comments provided I'm thinking about the following migration plan:
1- Create a host profile from a server in the current cluster.
2- Create a new cluster with the new hosts using the host profile to setup all configurations similar to the old one.
3- Present the new storage to the new hosts/cluster.
4- Create the new datastores with VMFS5 format.
3- Stop the VM's in the current cluster.
4- Do a storage vMotion and migrate the VM's (currently use VMFS3) to the new storage (datastores in VMFS5) and hosts/cluster.
5- Power on the VM's.
Do you think this is a good plan or do you forsee any problems?
Further questions:
- The current farm is vSphere 5.1 but the VM's weren't upgrade. (VM versions 4 and 7, datastores with VMFS 3.5/3.46 and old VMWARE tools version)
- The new farm will be vSphere 5.1 and the datastores will be created using VMFS5.
When I migrate the VM's to the new farm do I need to upgrade the VM HW version and VMWARE tools? Do you forsee any problems if I don't do that?
Kind regards.