Upgrade from ESX 3.X - 3.5

[smleblanc]

I guess I'm just a little confused on the upgrade process so any advice is much appreciate.

I understand I can get the media, stick the CD in and upgrade the server. What is vmware update manager? Can I use it to update my esx host?

Also, for the VirtualCenter 2.5 server, where is that installed from, same CD? Is there an upgrade document somewhere detailing the order the upgrade should be done in?

Is there an update to the vmware license server as well? Do you need new license files?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Shawn

[Troy_Clavell · Accepted solution]

Thise document may help shed some light

[smleblanc]

That was fast and that is exactly what I need.

Can I download the media?

I suppose I should wait for my new 3.5 licensing before move forward.

We do have maintenance.

Regards,

Shawn

[Troy_Clavell]

you can download the media, just register if you aren't already

http://www.vmware.com/download/vi/

[petedr]

I have done the upgrades using the CD and choosing upgrade, the steps in the document Troy posted. You could also download the tar.gz 3.5 upgrade file and do the upgrade that way using esxupdate. The steps are in also in the manual, both ways work.

Vmware update manager is for handling automated patch management.

Here is the datasheet on it

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/update_manager_datasheet.pdf

[smleblanc]

Thank-you for your assistance.

Very much appreciated.

On the right track now.

Regards,

Shawn

[smleblanc]

Has anyone seen any documentation on how to migrate your Virtual Center Server to another machine.

We are thinking of running it in a VM. Any caveats that we should be aware of?

[petedr]

thanks for the helpful,

did some searches on the forum and found a couple of threads talking about migrating Virtual Center to a new server, here is one

http://communities.vmware.com/message/796062#796062

[ehjoyner]

I am in the process of starting the upgrade and I was wondering what is in this attachment and where can I locate it?

(When I click on it, gives an error and says that it can not be located...)

THANKS!

Emily

[azn2kew]

Virtual Center Server on a VM is actually supported and good idea because you can save physical server expenses and have the luxury to experience HA/Vmotion features within ESX. Imagine your ESX hosted your VC server toasted and it will shutdown and restarted all the VMs back to other running ESX host so you can have redundancy in place. You can use P2V Converter, Platespin and vConverter from Vizioncore to convert your VC server.

[Brock]

The problem with having VC in a VM is that if all your hosts were to go down (due to maybe an extended power outtage). You would be unable to boot your VC VM because your host would not be able to contact the license server.

[chandlm]

I've had my VC server shut down twice (once for a complete power outage and once due to a network failure/host isolation problem) and brought it back online without any issues at all. As long as you always know what host the VC server is on you can simply attach to that host and power it on.

[Brock]

Hmm thats interesting. I had the issue I described with VC2 and ESX3.0. I would power on both ESX servers and since they could not contact the license server I was not able to power any VMs. Maybe thats changed with 3.5?

[Schorschi]

Some thing does not make sense... PDF attached to this thread says...

Unzip VMware-esx-upgrade-from-esx3-.zip in a directory and then run esxupdate update. But the actual file that can be dowloaded...

upgrade-from-esx3.0.x-3.5.0_Update_2-110268.zip

Nor can I unzip the above file, and just run 'esxupdate update' per the PDF... I unzipped to directory of temp call upgrade...

# esxupdate update

INFO: No repository URL specified, going with file:/tmp/upgrade

INFO: Configuring...

ERROR: Invalid repository at file:/tmp/upgrade/: Cannot find descriptor.xml

INFO: Make sure you have file: or http: prepended to the URL.

#

What did I miss? I don't think I have, but must have.

[Schorschi]

Ok, turns out one of the required pre-req. patches was missing. But the error message does not make sense for the issue. Found better explaination of the message in the release notes for the actual update zip.