There was a business need to migrate a cluster of hosts to a new vCenter that are connected to a VDSwitch. This is a fairly straightforward task, and something I’ve done more than a few times in my career. I’ve used a few methods to accomplish this in the past, and wanted to see if I could improve upon the process.

The “tried and true” method that I always go to (in a nutshell) is creating and moving everything to a Standard Switch, swinging the host over, importing the existing VDSwitch configuration, and reconnecting the hosts/VMs to the VDSwitch. A much more thorough explanation of this method can be found here.

Simplifying the Process

Does this process work? Absolutely! Is it tedious? Yes, unfortunately it does have a lot of steps which increases the margin for error. In looking for ways to simplify things, I came across this blog post. If you’ve ever moved a host with a VDSwitch into a new vCenter, than you are undoubtedly familiar with the following error:

Despite importing the VDSwitch configuration prior the migration, the host will still be upset with what if finds on the new vCenter. In Ivo’s blog post, he says you can preserve the existing configuration of the VDSwitch if you import the configuration after you swing the hosts over.

Very intriguing. Ivo’s blog post is for vSphere 5.1, and I’m at 6.7. Will it work? I tested it in my lab, and no problems! With a smooth trial run, I performed the configuration on the production hosts, and as expected they reconnected without issue! I validated all host/VM networking, and everything looked fine.

Conclusion

Is there any reason not to use the “tried and true” method I mentioned above? No, not at all. It’s a validated way of doing it, with an excellent track record. In trying to make things more efficient I found this method as an extension to the “tried and true” method.