Upgrade to V4

[Rohail2004]

I am planning an upgrade from ESX 3.5, VC 2.5, update 3 to vSphere. Can anyone please let me know the best way to start an upgrade? etc? any info would be helpful. thanks in advance.

[lamw]

Here's a great resource page to start out:

Here's a comparison list of all editions and their features: http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/buy/editions_comparison.html

It's also definitely worth wild to reach out to your account manager for more details/info

=========================================================================

William Lam

VMware vExpert 2009

VMware ESX/ESXi scripts and resources at:

VMware Code Central - Scripts/Sample code for Developers and Administrators

VMware Developer Comuunity

Twitter: @lamw

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[Troy_Clavell]

at a high level, your upgrade process will go:

1. vCenter

2. ESX Hosts

3. VMware Guest Tools

4. Guest virtual Hardware

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_upgrade_guide.pdf

[Rohail2004]

Can I build a another VC 2.5, upgrade that to V4, and then upgrade one host at a time? would I be able to move the VM's from 3.5 to V4 and upgrade the VMtools and hardware? all of our vms are on the SAN.. I dont want to just upgrade the production systems. wants to move slowly.

Any ideas? thanks.

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

Can I build a another VC 2.5, upgrade that to V4, and then upgrade one host at a time? would I be able to move the VM's from 3.5 to V4 and upgrade the VMtools and hardware? all of our vms are on the SAN.. I dont want to just upgrade the production systems. wants to move slowly.

sure... If you want to build a new instance just to test the upgrade of vCenter, that would be fine. But, I wouldn't test the upgrade on your production DB. Build a new instance using the built in SQL Express DB. Once you are confortable doing that, move to your production vCenter instance.

ESX3 and ESX4 are fine together, but they HAVE to be managed by a vCenter4 instance.

Just keep an eye out for this "feature"

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011294

[Rohail2004]

ok thanks,

last question... I have a another VC with sql2005 ... I am thinking to upgrade that one... it is running as a VM under ESX 3.5.. That wouldnt be an issue? right.

[Troy_Clavell]

not a problem at all. We have 2 vCenter4 instances running as VM's hosted under ESX3.5U4