We have two different data centers. Each one has its own set of hosts and uses its own local SAN storage array. Each data center has its own VCenter installation. The hosts and VCenter are all at 5.1
The two data centers are connected by 10G Ethernet. Our network group just completed a core switch reconfiguration/upgrade so that the subnets are "stretched" and the same VLAN's are accessible at both data centers.
Ultimately we will be using SRM to handle failover, but it's not set up completely (yet).
What I'm trying to find out is an easy way to relocate some VM's from one data center to the other. It doesn't need to be live "vmotion" migration, although that would be great if it was possible.
Some of the things I thought of were using the converter to "V to V" to a host in the other data center, or possibly exporting/import the VMDK to the other system then doing an "add to inventory".
The problem is that these seem pretty unwieldy; I can't help thinking there has to be better way to do this.
One approach I did think of was to take a host, temporarily add it to the primary vcenter, relocate the VM's that I need to move to that host/storage, then import the host into the secondary VCenter, bringing the VM's with it. However, I'm not sure if that will cause issues with the SAN storage, since that host's storage will be shared with hosts in the secondary VCenter, but the host will be part of the primary VCenter
Another possiblity is to use ISCSI to set a host in the secondary data center to see a SAN LUN in the primary data center. Then I could copy the VMDK files to a datastore in the secondary array and do an "add to inventory". But again, that brings up the concern of a LUN being accessed by hosts in two different VCenter installations.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Mike O.