Upgrading from 3.0.2 - which way to go??

[Kahonu84]

Aloha,

I have three Dell 2950's sitting at 3.0.2. I am beginning to think about upgrading. The question is - to 3.5 or 3i?? Anybody that has done this, please share their decision making process in going one way or another.

Also - is anyone aware of a document that compares the two products??

Mahalo,

Bill

[java_cat33]

Personally I would go to ESX 3.5 as it has a service console - and I'm familiar with it. It's not a problem to install scripts, management agents - whatever (I've never used the Remote CLI). However with ESX 3.5i..... obviously there is no service console..... at present I feel that it is too new.... I've tried it once and we found performance issues compared to running on standard 3.5 (I'm not sure why).... also if you don't go to 3.5i Update 1 - I don't believe HA is supported.

To perform advanced options on 3.5i you must use the Remote CLI.

An advantage of 3.5i though is that you will have less patches to apply to your server and it is more secure - as most patches released are for the service console.

Here is a link to some comparisons....

[Kahonu84]

Mahalo. That looks like a good start.

Another question if I may. Would upgrading VirtualCenter from 2.0.2 to 2.5 be an appropriate first step???

[esiebert7625 · Accepted solution]

It's a mandatory step, VC 2.0.x cannot manage ESX 3.5 servers, see this ...

VMware Infrastructure Compatibility Matrixes - http://vmware.com/pdf//vi3_35/esx_3/r35/vi3_35_25_compat_matrix.pdf

Also you might check out some of these links:

http://vmware-land.com/Vmware_Links.html#VI35

Eric Siebert

VMware Communities User Moderator

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[Kahonu84]

Wow. That will keep me busy awhile. Mahalo!!!