5.0 to 6.5 Upgrade question.

[pgator17]

I have 3 servers I need to upgrade from 5.0  to 6.5. I have vcenter 5 installed on a virtual machine on one of the 3 servers. I really want to have clean installs and not upgrade. I was thinking about moving all the virtual machines to 1 of the 3 hosts, I have enough resources to do so for a short time. Then reinstalling esxi 6.5 onto 2 of the host machines, Then installing vcenter 6.5 on the clean install esxi, then move all the vms from the last server to the new 6.5 servers and then upgrade the last one, I will be doing this during a weekend so I can have downtime. Any thoughts or suggestions on getting them upgraded in this instance.

[IRIX201110141]

Neither for your vCenter or ESXi you cant directy upgrade to 6.5 so a new/fresh installation might be a good idea compared to upgrading to 6.0 first with a inplace upgrade.

Note:

• vCenter on Windows is dead. VCSA is the new king
• No SSO anymore... its renamed to PSC and works "similar"
• New vCenter also supports running older ESXi version [1]

- Install a new VCSA 6.5 or 6.7 (if SnS allows the upgrade and your Backup/$OtherStuff supports 6.5/6.7)

- If you choose a new IP/Name you can run both in parallel and can tranfer the the settings from the old to the new vCenter manually

- If supportet by your hardware install fresh  ESXi 6.5/7 on 1 or 2 Hosts

Well... now the problem starts

- Shutdown all the VMs on the last ESXi and perform an Upgrade to 6.0. Join the new vCenter and migrate the VMs to the other 2 Hosts and start them. Consider VMware Tools und vHW update later

If you dont upgrade and choose also fresh install you will lose the registration of all VMs. But ESX 5.0 is to old for managing by a 6.5 vCenter so you need to upgrade.

If all VMs are migrated you can reinstall this Host also.

[1] VMware Product Interoperability Matrices

Regards

Joerg

[pgator17]

could I take a veeam backup of the esxi 5.0 vms and restore them to the new 6.5 esxi hosts and then once all the vm's are on the two new 6.5 hosts setup the new vcenter on the third and then move them around after that.

[IRIX201110141]

Possible, but takes much longer.

Similar way

• Install new VCSA and configure it
• Install one new ESXi and join the new VCSA
• Now unregister and register one VM after another. This take only a couple of min of downtime and if the VM starts again you can verify if its healthy

About Veeam. Be sure to upgrade to 9.5u4 when use VCSA 6.7u1. All VMs will get a new identity and will start a new cylce so be sure that you have enough space left.

Regards

Joerg

[pgator17]

Will the new VCSA register up a old 5.0 server and allow me to move the vms to the new 6.5 esxi hosts?

[daphnissov]

No, it cannot manage any 5.0 or 5.1 hosts.

[pgator17]

One last question. So I will upgrade the server with all the vms on it from 5.0 to 6.0 and then from 6.0 to 6.7. Do I need to update the vm tools on each vm after the 6.0 upgrade and then again after the 6.7 upgrade or can I can run the 6.0 upgrade, reboot, make sure all vms start and are ok, then shut them down and run the 6.7 upgrade and then do the vm tools on each vm?

[apurva0304]

You can upgrade the host to 6.7 first and later update the VMware Tools in one go.

VM would still function fine.

[notjustlab]

I performed the same scenario from 5.5 to 6.0 and it worked fine. Your plan is good and I think you should go with it. Yes Vmware is recommending VCSA on vCenter for Windows but still windows vCenter is in use and is providing great advantages. For example vCenter windows can support of any Database type but VCSA will only support Oracle or inbuild database (In some cases, you can have that need for exteranal DB). So, consider this before having VCSA in place on windows VCenter.

Yes you have to update the tools on each vm but this can be done in one go by creating a baseline.

Thanks

[daphnissov]

vCenter for Windows is end-of-the-line. There are no more releases past 6.7. And the disadvantages far, far outweight the maybe one advantage to running it. There should be no more Windows vCenters deployed. The appliance is the only choice moving forward.