While migrating some VMs to a new storage array, I ran into an issue while moving the last VM, which, of course, was my vCenter appliance. When I right-clicked the VM in vCenter, then went to migrate. The migration option was greyed out, which blocked the migration.

TL;DR Follow VMware’s KB 1029926

Longer Version

Note: All examples will use the URL https://vcenter. It would be best if you changed this to be your vCenter URL.

• Select the VM in question
• Copy the URL in the browser

Example:

https://vcenter/ui/#?extensionId=vsphere.core.vm.summary&objectId=urn:vmomi:VirtualMachine:vm-15:......

• Grab the VM ID from the URL. In the example the ID is “15”
• Open a new browser windows to https://vcenter/mob/?moid=AuthorizationManager&method=enableMethods
• Login with an Admin user. Example: administrator@vsphere.local
• Enter the following in the value fields replacing the VM ID.
• Entity

<!-- array start -->
<entity type="ManagedEntity" xsi:type="ManagedObjectReference">vm-15</entity>
<!-- array end -->

• Method

<method>RelocateVM_Task</method>

• Click Invoke Method
• Go back to your vCenter URL and refresh the page.
• You should be able to migrate the VM now.