So for a vcenter system that has distributed vswitches, and also SRM installed -
what is the effect of just "starting over" with a clean DB? Let's for the moment forget SRM (I'll research / ask about that in the SRM community):
if all the hosts in a cluster are using a DVS, what happens to them if/when vcenter service is shutdown a clean vcenter db is installed and the hosts join the db? Or - maybe - what would my procedure have to be, to accomplish starting with a clean db?
If I remove the hosts from inventory, then ... don't they lose the ability to communicate across the DVS? What about if I just shut down the vcenter service, then install a new clean db, and add the hosts to it - again, the DVS definition is gone, right, so ... what, the hosts lose the ability to talk through the DVS right? But ... how do the hosts communicate when the vcenter service is down - is there someway that they would be able to keep communicating over those same nics, even though there is no "local" standard vswitch?
Or - do I simply have to: evacuate all VMs on a host, create a new standard vswitch, move the nic from the DVS into the new standard vswitch, and then .... complete that on all the hosts, before I remove the vcenter db?
gaaa - I've not used a ton of DVS systems, since most of what I touch is 3-maybe 10 hosts, and .... it's just too easy to build standard switches by hand. I don't have much confidence that I know how the DVS works, what consequences there will be, etc ....
Any insights greatly appreciated!