Planning on moving serveral esx hosts to a new vcenter server. The hosts are connected to the current vcenter server and are in a cluster. I would like to keep all VM's running while doing so.
If I try to remove the hosts I receive the message to put the host into maintenance mode first. All guides I have read state the same: "put the hosts into maintenance mode first and then remove from vcenter". In testing I have found that I can disconnect a host first, and then remove. However, when adding the host to a new vcenter server it prompts that the server is already managed by another server, which then requires the manual removal of agents and some further steps.
Is there a method to "cleanly" remove an esx host from one vcenter without going into maintenance mode while keeping all VM's on the host running?