VI3 upgrade recommendations

[vmproteau]

We have a relatively small VI3 implementation. A virtual Center Server (2.0.2) and 15 or so ESX Hosts (3.0.2). I planned on upgrading Virtual Center to 2.5 and upgrading the Hosts to 3.5 gradually over the next several months.

A couple of conversations my co-worker and I had with support made me question if I should proceed. One tech suggested that it might be better to not leave 3.0.2 Hosts at that level for too long after upgrading Virtual Center to 2.5 (that seemed odd). After my co-worker suggested we would probably hold off on the upgrade for a while another tech made the comment "that's probably a good idea".

I haven't scoured the communities to see if these were indicative of a common school of thought. I'm just looking for upgrade experiences and/or recommendations. I am not in any rush to upgrade so if the upgrade is suspect and things are still being tweaked I'm willing to wait. If most issues are related to a lack of "due dilligence" by the end user then I may reconsider.

[RParker]

> One tech suggested that it might be better to not leave 3.0.2 Hosts at that level for too long after upgrading Virtual Center to 2.5 (that seemed odd).

Is this a VM Tech or just some IT dude? It sounds like they are making this up as they go along. There isn't a problem with mixed hosts at all.

> I haven't scoured the communities to see if these were indicative of a common school of thought. I'm just looking for upgrade experiences and/or recommendations. I am not in any rush to upgrade so if the upgrade is suspect and things are still being tweaked I'm willing to wait. If most issues are related to a lack of "due dilligence" by the end user then I may reconsider

I would recommend you upgrade gradually, try a couple of hosts and see how they work. Keep in mind that you should install a NEW ESX 3.5 on those 3.02 hosts, and not try to upgrade them. You can safely perserve your VMFS volumes without losing your VM's on that host if you have any. A new install is preferable.

[Anders_Gregerse · Accepted solution]

I upgraded our environment, first VC and then one host at the time (no upgrade, clean install). After the first impressions, I would recommend waiting for the patch for VC expected around the end of march. Some experience problems with cpu count, DRS, vmotion and high cpu usage. All of them have workarounds but, for larger installations they involve a lot of time, submitting support requests to vmware, implementing workarounds, etc.

If possible I would tryout 3.5 and VC 2.5 for some time before implementing full scale.

However there might be features or fixes in 3.5 that you need for some reason (I did) and it's up to your business to determine what fits your needs best.

[java_cat33]

Hi Anders - Where do you read about the new VC patch being released in March?

[Anders_Gregerse]

I think it was in our local vmug community. It's VC 2.5 Update 1 around the end of march (beginning of april). I usually just use these rumours to adjust our roadmap accordingly so that we can do some planning and give our business some idea about when we expect to have a solution, and also to make sure that we have room in our service windows.

[vmproteau]

One tech suggested that it might be better to not leave 3.0.2 Hosts at that level for too long after upgrading Virtual Center to 2.5 (that seemed odd).

Is this a VM Tech or just some IT dude? It sounds like they are making this up as they go along. There isn't a problem with mixed hosts at all.

It was a VM tech but, who knows what he was talking about. He may have misspoke.

If there is a VC update being released I'll hold off. I'm in no hurry and unfortunately we don't yet have a dev environment so when I do this it will be on production servers.