Jan 5 2010 ESXi critical update confusion - Update 1 prereq or no?

[DSeaman]

Currently all of our ESXi servers are running build 193498, which is the last build prior to update 1 being released. Update 1 is build 208xxx, and we had not planned on immediate deployment since it involved updating vCenter, ESXi hosts, vsphere client, etc. But yesterday VMware released a critical update for ESX/ESXi that bumps the build up to 219382. Clearly this build is higher than update 1.

Best practices for upgrading to update 1 would suggest updating vCenter first, then ESXi hosts last. But with this new critical ESXi build, can I deploy it prior to updating vCenter to update 1, or do we need to put update 1 on a fast track, then push the Jan 5 ESXi firmware update?

The KB article for the Jan 5 patch does't mention any requirement for vCenter update 1 to be deployed first. If we go ahead and push the Jan 5 critical patch, then it seems that gets us half way to update 1 but in the wrong order.

Thoughts?

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=101629...

[dnetz]

The upgrade guide does state that upgrading vCenter should be your first step, but this is mainly to avoid losing the communication with incompatible hosts. The Vmware compatibility matrix PDF clearly states that vCenter 4.0 is compatible with both ESXi 4 RTM and Update 1.

For what it's worth, I've upgraded two vCenter 4.0 installations to Update 1 and it was a very smooth ride, however you should be fine with installing this patch anyway.

Hope it helps!

[s1xth]

I acutally upgraded my vCenter to U1 prior to any of these issues even being known. I am running all ESXi 4 U1 release and never had a problem with the agents, I even removed a couple dev hosts and added them back to vCenter and couldnt replicate the KB article problem, so it may just be in certain configurations or environments.

You should be fine though.