Updating standalone ESXi host

[nw1977]

Hi All

Just looking for some advice on this. What approach would you guys use for updating ESXi hosts that do not have SAN storage? To protect the VMs would you migrate them to another host (when they are powered off) before patching, or is the risk little enough to not need to do this? My concern is that if anything happens to the host following updating then the VMs on there would be inaccessible.

To clarfiy, I just mean patch rather than upgrade and am planning to use update manager to do the updates.

Thanks in advance!

N

[memaad]

Hi,

Best practise will be to take backup of virtual machine before applying patches or upgrade process of ESXi/ ESX host. You can move it other host local datastore too.

Regards

Mohammed

[nw1977]

Hi Mohammed,

Thank you. My concern with the backups is that they are guest OS only rather than a virtual disk level backup, so any recovery would be lengthy! I think moving to another host when they are offline is looking like the best option. Just on that - Is it best to use vcenter to do the migration, or would you recommend using something like fastscp?

Also, would you say its better to clone to the other host just in case? or actually migrate? Is there any difference between to two in terms of virtual hardware changes other than one being a copy and one being a move?

Thanks again!

N

[memaad]

Hi,

>> Migration using  vCenter server  will be best, since it is optimized tool rather than using  fastcp.

Also, would you say its better to clone to the other host just in case? or actually migrate? Is there any difference between to two in terms of virtual hardware changes other than one being a copy and one being a move?

>> Migrate or clone depending on your feasibility . No difference in virtual hardware changes

Regards

Mohammed