Impact of renaming ESXi hosts managed by vCenter

[HDClown]

I need to re-name my ESXi hosts (in VMware) and these hosts are are managed by vCenter. The name of vCenter itself will NOT change whatsoever.

This process requires removing the hosts from being managed by vCenter then re-adding them using the new name. What impact will this have on Veeam where I have backup and replication jobs in place, and what changes (if any) would I need to make in Veeam?

[Mildur]

Hi

If the vms are on local storage of the esxi host when you remove the host, vm MoRefID will be different after re-adding the esxi host under a new name.

If the vm MoRefID is different, veeam will see the vms as new objects and starts a active full backup or a initial replication (after you added them backup to the jobs, or automatically if you have added the entire vcenter/folder/tag as a source for the jobs).
There are unsupported ways to update the MoRefID inside the veeam database to use the existing backup chains without an active full necessary.

You should move the vm to another esxi host in the vcenter, remove the esxi host from the vcenter, add it again
Then the vm MoRefID will not change. This procedure will not impact veeam operations.

[HDClown]

All VM's are on shared storage (FC SAN) and nothing about that connectivity would change.

[Mildur]

Ok, then you will not face any issue.
Use vMotion to move the vms to another esxi host, and you are good to go with the renaming.

[HDClown]

Do I need to do anything in Veeam with infrastructure components after I do the ESXi host renames, or will that be seamless since those are picked up through vCenter being added to Veeam>

[Mildur]

If you have added the vcenter, then a recan of the vcenter should be enough. Should happen automatically every 4 hours, if I remember correctly. Or you can do it manually. You don‘t need to reconfigure anything in veeam.

There is one exception, if you have used an esxi host as a source for a backup job. Then you would need to add it again. But I don‘t think you have done that

You can start with one host and see how it all goes. Run a quick backup and a replica of a vm after you renamed the first host.

[Origin 2000]

Aeh......at least
You have to revoke the Veeam License when using CPU based perpetual licensing.

When it comes to the replication job i can say iam not so optimistic because in my case the jobs stops working. Yes i move the source VM to another ESXi but thats doesnt helped in my case.

Regards,
Joerg