Sometimes you must restore a virtual machine directly to an ESXi host, for example in disaster recovery when vCenter Server runs on ESXi as a virtual machine. A new vSphere 5 feature tries to prevent this if the ESXi host is managed by vCenter. To circumvent this and restore the virtual machine, you must first disassociate the host from vCenter. In earlier releases, vCenter management had less state but was revocable only from vCenter.

Procedure

  1. Using the vSphere Client, connect directly to the ESXi 5.0 or later host.
  2. In the Inventory left-hand panel, select the host. In the right-hand panel, click Summary.
  3. In the box titled Host Management, click Disassociate host from vCenter Server. You do not need to put the host in Maintenance Mode.
  4. After the vCenter Server has been restored and is back in service, use it to reacquire the host.

    Currently there is no API to disassociate a host from vCenter Server.