You can manually initiate a failover and have the Passive node become the Active node.

A vCenter HA cluster supports two types of failover.
Automatic failover
The Passive node attempts to take over the active role in case of an Active node failure.
Manual failover
The user can force a Passive node to take over the active role by using the Initiate Failover action.

Initiate a manual failover for troubleshooting and testing.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the Active node vCenter Server Appliance with the vSphere Client and click Configure for the vCenter Server where you need to initiate failover.
  2. Under Settings select vCenter HA and click Initiate Failover.
  3. Click Yes to start the failover.
    A dialog offers you the option to force a failover without synchronization. In most cases, performing synchronization first is best.
  4. After the failover, you can verify that the Passive node has the role of the Active node in the vSphere Client.