move a virtual machine from one vCenter to another vCenter

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

User · Answer

Yes  you can do this     Copy all of the cloned VM s files from its directory  and place it on its destination datastore  In the VI client connected to the destination vCenter  go to the Inventory- Datastores view   Open the datastore browser for the datastore where you placed the VM s files  Find the  vmx file that you copied over and right-click it  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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    Copy all of the cloned VM s files from its directory  and place it on its destination datastore  In the VI client connected to the destination vCenter  go to the Inventory- Datastores view   Open the datastore browser for the datastore where you placed the VM s files  Find the  vmx file that you copied over and right-click it  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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

User · Answer

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

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

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