Upgrade of ESX 3.02 or fresh install?

[NYSDHCR]

I'm just weighing the pros and cons of performing an upgrade of ESX 3.02 or fresh install. I would just like to hear the opinions of everyone. We have 12 ESX 3.0.2 hosts.

[tlyczko]

I hope I can do an upgrade, because I went to a lot of trouble to set up my APC UPS, with a NIC controller and all...and I don't want to lose my data, have my VMs offline for hours, etc.

I read that the tarball is only for 2.x to 3.5, you have to use the CD to upgrade 3.x to 3.5.

I look forward to reading what people have to say here...Thank you, Tom

[MR-T]

I performed an upgrade from 3.0.2 to 3.5 with the beta code and it worked fine.

Personally though, I always prefer to start a fresh and use a clean install.

[esiebert7625]

There will be a zip upgrade file (no tarball) for 3.0.x-->3.5 upgrades available later today on the download page...

http://communities.vmware.com/message/816655

Eric Siebert

VMware Communities User Moderator

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Visit my website:

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Gabrie1]

Hi

If you have the spare capacity on the other hosts to keep your VMs running while upgrading / reinstalling, then I would do the reinstall. The reinstall will take a little more time because you have to reconfigure everything, but in the future you will be sure there is no polution from older installs. With 12 hosts, I would even think of using an auto install script to speed up the installation. I have a great script, combined with the UDA appliance that lets me install an esx host in 5min !!!

We don't do backups of the hosts. If anything goes wrong, I just reinstall.

Gabrie

[tlyczko]

Gabrie, would you please tell us more about your installer??

Does the VMware 3.5 installer take very long to do a new install??

We only have one host right now, with Starter version, DAS/local storage only.

Do all the VMs have to be moved/saved to other storage to do the reinstall??

What is the safest way to do this?? I don't have SAN, only local storage and a NAS (which doesn't have UDP over TCP or whatever it is that VMware needs for NAS compatibility), but I could FTP the files to NAS storage with Veeam FastSCP.

I recently read on vmreference.com that it's better to use VI Client or Web Access to set up the VMFS partitions instead of the installer, is this really true, should I do this in the reinstall??

I imagine that doing so would require that all my VMs be off the VMFS so the partition could be created etc.

Thank you, Tom

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Since ESX v3.5 is a major upgrade, but at the same time not really. The Base OS of the SC is still RHEL3 U6, so most of the changes appear to be in the vmkernel and vmware bits. Plus some security updates for various RPMs for the SC. In this scenario an upgrade would be just fine. If the base of the SC changed from RHEL3 U6, to say RHEL4, then I would do a reinstall. THis is just the point of view from the Linux world. With a good configuration script, either a reinstall or upgrade would work.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky, author of the forthcoming 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', publishing January 2008, Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. Available on Rough Cuts at http://safari.informit.com/9780132302074

[Gabrie1]

Hi

I haven't ported my script to the 3.5 install yet and for you, the biggest flaw in the script will be that I don't care for saving local storage. I just wipe the disks before doing an install. All my VMs are on SAN LUNs. For booting I use the UDA appliance, you can find it here at the VMware website. http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/232

From the basic script that the UDA generates, I extended the script to be able to pass parameters. I now only have to set the IP address of the new ESX host as a parameter and the script will install everything and deliver a fully configured ESX host. I will try to put my script on my blog within the next 3 days. Today I'm not sure if I have enough time to do this, but I hope at last monday I can place the script there. Keep watching for http://virtualgabe.wordpress.com/

Gabrie

[andreas_fatum]

I don't think scripted install saves much time. It's just the host settings which can be scripted (IP-settings, timezone, keyboard-layout). These can also be quickly licked through.

What bugs me more is the work you have to spend after installation but before joing the host into production: Definition of all vSwitches, vmnic-assignment and the creation of all the networks for VMs (it's two vSwitches and 11 networks with different VLAN-IDs in my scenario).

Can these settings be transferred over from a running host to fresh installed one, too?

Kind regards,

Andreas

[Gabrie1]

Hi

In the script I configure license server, disklayout, dns, hostname, IP address, VMotion interface, timesettings, unload vmfs2 driver, NTP configuration, HP SimAgents, vSwitches and VLANs. The only thing left after installation is adding the host to the cluster and enabling the VMotion interface (but it has been configured already). And using vmish you could even activate the vmotion interface, but I didnt have time in my project to figure this out.

The only thing I need is the last digit of the IP address, which is then passed to the scripts and used for IP, VMotion IP and DNS name.

Try to post it as soon as possible.

Gabrie

[Gabrie1]

Hi

Posted my scripts here:

Should you have any questions, just mail me

Gabrie

[panumanla]

Hi,

I cannot see your script install in the link you have posted. Can you please send it once again.

Thanks a lot

Praveen