Migrating VMs from vCenter 6.5 to vCenter 8.0

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Using "Import VM" option to migrate this VMs fails for larger VMs with the error:

An error occurred while communicating with the remote host.

Environment

VMware vCenter Server 6.x

VMware vCenter Server 8.x

Resolution

No resolution available due to the source vCenter being no longer supported.

• Workaround:
  • Upgrade the source vCenter (6.5) to either 6.7 or 7.0 temporarily/permanently to give you the option of cross vCenter migration.
  • If the above fails then the final option will be to copy the VM files from the old to the new storage and then register the VMs on the new vCenter (this will require a VM/VMs downtime).

Additional Information

 "Import VMs" uses the same APIs as Advanced Cross vCenter vMotion, which means that it is not supported with a vCenter 6.5 either as mentioned https://techdocs.broadcom.com/us/en/vmware-cis/vsphere/vsphere/8-0/vcenter-and-host-management-8-0/migrating-virtual-machines-host-management/vmotion-across-vcenter-server-systems-host-management/migrate-a-virtual-machine-from-an-external-vcenter-server-instance-host-management.html.