move a virtual machine from one vCenter to another vCenter [closed]

Question

I have the following problem: There two separate vCenters (ESXi). They cannot see each other or communicate in any way. I can create a Clone of a VM in vCenter1 but then I want to move that Clone in vCenter2. Is there a way that I can copy the Cloned VM (files) on an external HDD and move them in the other vCenter?

Complice

I've figure it out the solution to my problem: Step 1: from within the vSphere client, while connected to vCenter1, select the VM and then from "File" menu select "Export"->"Export OVF Template" (note: make sure the VM is Powered Off otherwise this feature is not available - it will be gray). This action will allow you to save on your machine/laptop the VM (as an .vmdk, .ovf and a .mf file). Step 2: Connect to the vCenter2 with your vSphere client and from "File" menu select "Deploy OVF Template..." and then select the location where the VM was saved in the previous step. That was all! Thanks! – Complice

Answer 1

I've figure it out the solution to my problem:

• Step 1: from within the vSphere client, while connected to vCenter1, select the VM and then from "File" menu select "Export"->"Export OVF Template" (Note: make sure the VM is Powered Off otherwise this feature is not available - it will be gray). This action will allow you to save on your machine/laptop the VM (as an .vmdk, .ovf and a .mf file).
• Step 2: Connect to the vCenter2 with your vSphere client and from "File" menu select "Deploy OVF Template..." and then select the location where the VM was saved in the previous step.

That was all!
Thanks!

Complice

Export OVF is always grey for me :/ – Adamina

Answer 2

Yes, you can do this.

1. Copy all of the cloned VM's files from its directory, and place it on its destination datastore.
2. In the VI client connected to the destination vCenter, go to the Inventory->Datastores view.
3. Open the datastore browser for the datastore where you placed the VM's files.
4. Find the .vmx file that you copied over and right-click it.
5. Choose 'Register Virtual Machine', and follow whatever prompts ensue. (Depending on your version of vCenter, this may be 'Add to Inventory' or some other variant)

The VM registration process should finish with the cloned VM usable in the new vCenter!

Good luck!

Firearm

Best accomplished with a tool like WINSCP – Doubs

It can also be done via basic scp from on host's shell to the other host's ip. For example, in the host shell of the source host, cd to the datastore folder, then run scp -r "Name of VM folder"/* destination.host.ip:/vmfs/volumes/datastore-name/"Name of VM folder"/. (This assumes the same user on both hosts). It will take a second, but will copy directly from the source host to the destination host, not needing a "middleman" PC. – Trundle

Answer 3

For moving a virtual machine you need not clone the VM, just copy the VM files (after powering the VM off) to external HDD and register the same on destination host.

Ettie

Answer 4

A much simpler way to do this is to use vCenter Converter Standalone Client and do a P2V but in this case a V2V. It is much faster than copying the entire VM files onto some storage somewhere and copy it onto your new vCenter. It takes a long time to copy or exporting it to an OVF template and then import it. You can set your vCenter Converter Standalone Client to V2V in one step and synchronize and then have it power up the VM on the new Vcenter and shut off on the old vCenter. Simple.

For me using this method I was able to move a VM from one vCenter to another vCenter in about 30 minutes as compared to copying or exporting which took over 2hrs. Your results may vary.

---

This process below, from another responder, would work even better if you can present that datastore to ESXi servers on the vCenter and then follow step 2. Eliminating having to copy all the VMs then follow rest of the process.

1. Copy all of the cloned VM's files from its directory, and place it on its destination datastore.
2. In the VI client connected to the destination vCenter, go to the Inventory->Datastores view.
3. Open the datastore browser for the datastore where you placed the VM's files.
4. Find the .vmx file that you copied over and right-click it.
5. Choose 'Register Virtual Machine', and follow whatever prompts ensue. (Depending on your version of vCenter, this may be 'Add to Inventory' or some other variant)

Viscose

Answer 5

Copying the VM files onto an external HDD and then bringing it in to the destination will take a lot longer and requires multiple steps. Using vCenter Converter Standalone Client will do everything for you and is much faster. No external HDD required. Not sure where you got the cloning part from. vCenter Converter Standalone Client is simply copying the VM files by importing and exporting from source to destination, shutdown the source VM, then register the VM at destination and power on. All in one step. Takes about 1 min to set that up vCenter Converter Standalone Client.

Wickiup

Answer 6

You don't have to export your VMs at all. You can move the VM and clone to a TAXI host in vCenter 1. Then add the host to vCenter 2, and vMotion away whatever VMs to other hosts previously managed by vCenter 2. When done, you can add the TAXI host back to vCenter 1.

Assets

Answer 7

If you'd like to do this using the command line, you can do this if you have ESXi 6.0 (or possibly even ESXi 5.5) running, by using govc, which is a very helpful utility for interacting with both your vCenter and its associated resources.

Depending on your setup, you can

# setup your credentials
export GOVC_USERNAME=YOUR_USERNAME GOVC_PASSWORD=YOUR_PASSWORD
govc export.ovf -u your-vcsa-url.example.com -vm VM_NAME -dc VMS_DATACENTER export-folder

Then, you'll have your VM VM_NAME exported in the folder export-folder. From there, you can then

govc import.ovf -u your-other-vcsa-url.example.com -vm NEW_VM_NAME -dc NEW_DATACENTER export-folder/VM_NAME.ovf

That'll import it into your other vCenter. You might have to specify -ds NEW_DATASTORE too, if you have more than one datastore available, but govc will tell you so if you need to.

The commands above require that govc is installed, which you should, because it's far better than ovftool either way.

Unwish