VMware compatibility issue: Need to choose between 5.0 U1, U2, U3, or 5.1 for upgrade

[ZoltanK]

Well, it looks like I've run into an issue with my planned VMware upgrade (currently on ESX 4.1 U1).

While my hardware checked out against the VMware hardware compatibility, it turns out IBM has their own hardware compability list which I just learned about. According to it, our SAN is only compatible up to ESXi 5.0 U1 with the current firmware. With a firmware upgrade it’s compatible up to 5.0 U2 or 5.1, and with the newest firmware it’s compatible up to 5.0 U3 or 5.1 (but we usually like to run our firmware one version back).

Since we're upgrading in order to run Windows 2012 guest VMs, any of the upgrade options will accomplish that. So what I'd really like to find out is which of the compatible versions would be the most stable?

[JPM300]

Hey Zoltank,

Well it depends what you want to do.  I typically always try and go to the newest version available to me to avoid additional upgrades in the near future, however version 5.1 has SSO built in which is not an option as it has to be installed and comes with some extra design aspects unless you are only running 1 vCenter with all the roles on it.  If that is the case its a pretty simple upgrade.  If you run multiple vCenters you will want to do some reading on SSO(Single Sign On) As its the hardest part of upgrading to 5.1.   If you do not want to deal with SSO I would say 5.0 Update 2 or 3 as they are the newest and have the most bug fixes / driver updates in them.

I hope this has helped.

[rcporto]

To run Windows Server 2012 do you will need hosts at version 5.0 U1 or later.

[ZoltanK]

Turns out our current ESX 4.1 U1 is not listed as compatible with the new SAN firmware. Therefore we'll need to either upgrade to ESX 4.1 U2 or to 5.0 U1 before we can update our SAN firmware.

We already upgraded our vCenter Server to 5.1 before learning about the IBM compatibility list.

Looking at our options, I think the best option might be upgrading to ESXi 5.0 U1 Patch 4, since it'll allow us to start using Windows 2012 VMs. Then we can do the SAN firmware update and the upgrade to 5.0 U3 at our leisure.

If you would, please let me know what you think.

[JPM300]

That plan looks good to me.