If you have a running host, with a standard vswitch, can you change which kernel port handles vMotion without putting it into maintenance mode?
What's happening is that we have a number of blade servers, all running vSphere 5.1. Each host has single vSwitch with several port groups and a dedicated vmkernal port for vmotion and another dedicated one for the management network. We're using VLan's to separate the vmotion network.
Our networking group is going to do some reconfiguration that's going to change the VLan dedicated for the vmotion. What I would like to do enable the vmotion checkbox on the management network for each host, disable the checkbox on the "vmotion" port group. Then after the new vmotion VLan is set up by the network, I would go back and make the changes on each blade so that the "vmotion" is now enabled, and remove the vmotion functions from the management port.
I know it's not best practices to run the vmotion traffic over the management port network, but it's only going to be for a short term (probably a week or so). My bigger concern is whether I can make the changes "live" without affecting running machines.
In a related note, if a host looses contact with other hosts over the vmotion network, will that cause any problems (besides not being able to vmotion)? Will the loss of connectivity on only the vmotion port cause any kind of isolation response, failover, etc.?