Moving VMs to different hardware

[virtualpedia]

Hi All,

If you previously purchased a Business Edition 6000,  are you able to move the applications (CUCM, Unity, UCCX, etc) to different hardware without impacting licensing?

Currently have a BE6 running 11.5, that has EOL hardware.  I was curious if there is an option to migrate those VMs to our own esxi environment running on non-cisco hardware.   Not using Flex licensing

[Elliot Dierksen]

I have done this for several customers, so it can certainly be done. V11.5 still uses PLM, so it is very dependent on the MAC address and UUID of the VM. I have had success adding this to the VMX file definition. I edited the VMX file directly with vi. You have to refresh the VM afterwards. I did it using "vim-cmd vmsvc/reload [Vmid]"

uuid.action = "keep"

 If you don't migrate it via Vcenter, be really careful when you move the VM's because the files can get modified. I have not had success with ftp/sftp, but have had success with rcp.

Another thing is to check the "Specs based support" for the version of ESXi you will be using. Otherwise you can get denied support for running in an unsupported hardware configuration.

[virtualpedia]

Hi @Elliot Dierksen 

Thanks for the response. The UCS server is not currently managed by vCenter.    We do have a vCenter environment for our other non-cisco hosts.  The hosts are running esxi 7.x,   which from what I am seeing (unless I am wrong),  11.5 does not support.   The other caveat is I don't currently have smartnet on it

[Elliot Dierksen]

If you don't have Smartnet, then you are stuck if something fails. I know Vcenter is required for full specs based support. That said, check out the specs based support to make sure your hardware would be good even if you don't have Vcenter. My advice (after the aforementioned VMX file changes) would be to spin up a Vcenter on temporary licensing to do the migration. It would have to be a cold migration. Then you can decommission the Vcenter after the migration is complete. Perhaps ESXi isn't listed as officially support for V11.5, but I have run that in a lab. Your mileage may vary and proceed to your own risk.

[virtualpedia]

Thanks.  The hosts I'd want to move it to are part of ESXI, so maybe I'd have to add this UCS to our production vcenter.

It seems the risk is very high if something were to go wrong

If moving the vms to a different host invalidates the license.  Could I move them back to the original host or by then, the license would still be invalidated?

[Elliot Dierksen]

We are getting into an area where I feel a little uncomfortable giving too much advice. I am comfortable at a Unix/ESXi command line and have this kind of work for customers on many occasions. If get the feeling that you do not have that same comfort level. That makes me suggest to you that you engage professional services to do that if you aren't comfortable doing it since this does have some serious disaster potential.

[virtualpedia]

Understood.  I am also comfortable with ESXi as I have administered it in the past for years.  My concern is strictly with the UC side of it becoming unlicensed. 

As you mentioned it has disaster potential and since there is no smartnet, to me the risk doesn't seem worth it.  Hiring professional services has no value add