Esxi 5.1 to 5.5 upgrade

[NeoTeagasc]

  Hi All,

I am planning to move all esxi 5.1 host from vCenter 5.1 to our newly built vCenter 5.5.

We do not have distributed switches , SRM, Vmware view etc…
Also not worried about historical data in vCenter 5.1

What is best approach to do this ?

Below is my planned approach

• Create new cluster on vCenter 5.5 which will be same
  as cluster in vCenter 5.1.
• Disconnect hosts in vCenter 5.1 and register
  esxi host to vCenter 5.5
• I guess when I do this all standard will be
  still available as it is esxi host specific not vcenter.
• We have 5 hosts in cluster so I am planning to
  remove one host at a time from cluster and  upgrade esxi 5.1 to 5.5 using update manager
  5.5 on new vCenter.
• Since I am doing an upgrade not fresh install, I am not sure will
  stand switch will be still be there after upgrade. We are using iscsi for storage
  and it uses standard switch. If is it not available I can recreate it after upgrade.
• Any suggesting about pit fall that I need to watch out in this plan, please suggest.

Thank you....

[a_p_ · Accepted solution]

I did such migrations multiple times in the past and didn't experience any issues.

What I usually do in such cases is to:

• disable HA in both clusters (the current/old as well as new one)
• make sure EVC is configured properly for the new cluster (if required)
• disconnect and remove all the hosts (one-by-one) from the old vCenter Server and add them to the new cluster
• configure cluster settings like HA, DRS, ...
• once everything works as expected start upgrading the hosts

Don't forget to reconfigure your backup software (as well as any other 3rd party software and add-ons) after migrating the hosts to the new vCenter Server.

André

[vfk]

Also, make a note of your DRS rules, you will have to recreate them in the new vcenter, and any other custom configuration you have.

[CoolRam]

Did you have restriction that you can't upgrade VC to VC 5.5 .

If you to migrate all the host to newly created VM than you need to create all the stuff from the scratch.

Create the data center ,cluster and re create all ha,drs,VDS,hoatprofile.

If you have such an big envirnment than please Dont risk do plan to upgrade the same VC orbplan to migrate the same VC dB.

Just a  Suggest .rest is your decision.