I've got a DL380 G5 running VMware 4.1 Essentials. I've got Vcenter running as a vm on that host (Windows 2008). I have no shared storage. Datastores are just local on the host.
I purchased 2 newer servers that can handle VMware 6 Essentials (DL380 G7s that are identical). I've stood up 1 of the new servers and loaded esxi v6 on it. I've got all the licensing and keys needed for 3 hosts running v6 all set up, even though in the end I should have only 2.
Ultimate Goal: Transfer all vms and datastore off of the G5 (VMsware v4.1) to the newer G7s (VMware 6). Then decommission the G5 and use for other purposes. I'd prefer not to do much on the G5 - I don't want to upgrade it to v6 if I don't need to and I don't believe I should need to.
Put this together searching threads on the vmware community.
1) Create a new vCenter on new stood up Host using Windows Server 2012 R2. Now I should have a new vCenter managing one Host.
2) Remove the old Host (G5) from the old vCenter (2008) and add it to the new vCenter (2012).
3) Turn off VM that I move 1 at a time, and transfer to new Host.
4) Move all VMs from the old Host to the new Host in this manner then remove the old Host after VMs are moved.
Good to Go?????? What about the Datastores? I'll need them moved over also. Do they move over automatically with the VMs?