Upgrading ESXi4 cluster to ESXi5 via Update Manager

[timbo475]

Hi,

I think this is relatively straight-forward but i have some questions on specifics:

- Is it best to put hosts in maintenance mode before upgrading first or let the Update Manager upgrade process manage this? The reason I ask is that after reading it seems that the process will do this kind of thing anyway but just wondering what people advise.

- When using parellel mode for upgrade does it do both hosts at the same time? I'm confused a bit by parellel vs sequential upgrades (if it does both at the same time how does it keep VMs up?).

My intial thought was to put each host in mainteance mode then run the the upgrade process then do for the next host, etc. It does seem, though, that this is not actually necessary as the upgrade process will do what it needs to provided the correct cluster remediation options are selected.

I don't really have the luxury of being able to test the upgrade process first.

Edit: also the remediation report is complaining about EVC mode being disabled and asking me to enable it. Is this absolutely ncessary? The hosts are (AFAIK) identical and were bought at the same time.

Cheers,

Tim

[irfans123]

Best pracise to put the ESX Box in Maintenance mode and start the process ( Even if we dont the Update manager will perform this )

EVC mode must enable, This ensures CPU compatibility for vMotion even though the underlying hardware might be different from host to host.

[timbo475]

Thanks for the reply - I'll put the hosts in MM before upgrading.

If the host are already in a cluster that has vMotion  enabled (and works fine) and I know the hosts to be exactly the same  hardware, then I don't see the point of enabling EVC mode.