ESX3.5 and VC2.5 upgrade or clean installation

[hpzech]

Hello

We plan to "upgrade" our ESX 3.0.2 and VC 2.0 environmet Now I find out the way to do this.

I read some thread, but I could not found which way "clean installation or In-Place Upgrade"

generate lowest trouble.

And which points of the installation, would you recommend to docoument, before starting

the installation.

How are our experiences?

Thank you for every hints

Regards

Hans-Peter

[depping]

I usually tend to do a clean install. I use the esx-healthcheck script to document my ESX machines: http://esxhealthscript.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/esxhealthscript/

And simply write down the cluster settings, remove the hosts from the cluster, reinstall and add.

Duncan

My virtualisation blog:

[aldin · Accepted solution]

i upgrade few ESXs and VCs (3.0.1 and 2.0) with in-place-upgrade whitout any issues, so i recommend in-place upgrade.

[dkfbp]

Hi,

If your ESX servers are running on shared storage and you have vmotion available I would do the following:

1. Upgrade Virtual Center. I would not do a clean install.

2. Vmotion all of the virtual machines away from an ESX host and do a clean install of the ESX server. When reinstalled vmotion the virtual machines back to the host.

This is the way we are doing it.

Best regards

Frank Brix Pedersen

[azn2kew]

It really depends on your environment and how flexible for you. Most circumstances, fresh installed with latest patches is the way to go. If you have HA, VMotion, DRS already configured in a cluster, than installed ESX 3.5 fresh one by one until everything is completed. But first, you have to upgrade your VC 2.5 Server and backup your database first. Also, create Update Manager database if you intend to use built-in patch mechanism. If you don't care about stats and performance data than fresh install VC 2.5 is fine too but shouldn't be necessary.

If you found this information useful, please consider awarding points for "Correct" or "Helpful". Thanks!!!

Regards,

Stefan Nguyen

iGeek Systems LLC.

VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Consultant

[pdrace]

I did a VC upgrade to 2.5 and also upgraded 4 3.01 servers to 3.5 a few weeks ago. I considered fresh installs but was pressed for time. The servers were in 2 seperate HA /DRS clusters. I vmotioned all machines to one node via maintenance model and upgraded it's partner. I then vmotioned all servers back and upgraded the other node. It went surprisingly well.

[hpzech]

Morning

It's sound good.

But I read in the usergroup, that I loose the usergroup permission, is this correct?

Or this is it different between standart and the own defined group?

Thank

Regards

HaPe