Is it nessesary to upgrade from ESXi 4.1 to ESXi 5?

[akhtarmirza]

Is it?  What if we stary on ver 4.1 for a while?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

You won't be forced to go to vSphere 5 and VMware will support ESXi 4.x for 7 years - http://www.vmware.com/support/policies/lifecycle/enterprise-infrastructure/index.html.

If you have active SNS then you'll want to at least look at upgrading your licensing, but you wouldn't have to migrate right away if you want to wait (i.e. for the first service pack).

[Josh26]

ESXi5 isn't out yet - so there's certainly no need to uprgrade today.

[john23]

See in case you need any of new feature which in ESXi5 (after upgrade you are getting that feature),

[hmarsili]

For VSPHERE Essential users, is there any important benefir I'm missing? I see a lot of features, but none are direct impact for us. The question remaining is: is worth updating just for performance or stability improvments?

[dales123]

Errr, I guess it would look good in a CV!!  The big changes I can only see in ent+ for added features. I guessby upgrading you can also upgrade VMFS to the new version. Other than that if you are not currently having performance and stability issues I would not necessarily jump to upgrading just yet. maybe hang on a lurk round the forums waiting for others to do it and see what they report.

[mcowger]

ESXi 4.1 was pretty stable/solid, and performant.

While there are (almost) always improvements in new versions.

[arturka]

Hi

Before you will implement vSphere 5 into production env good practice is wait utill VMware release Update 1 pack for vSphere5 - that policy is applicable for all software verndors - at least in place where I work

Cheers
Artur

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