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EdiB
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Upgrade steps from 3.0.1 to 3.5 for ESX and VC to 2.5 from previous versions

What is the easiest way to upgrade the ESX 3.0.1 to 3.5 whithout breaking anything also the VC to 2.5.

Thanks

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tlowe
Contributor
Contributor

I first upgraded my VC from 2.0 to 2.5. After that was upgraded I upgraded one host at a time from the CD. Rejoined it to the VC and works fine so far.

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Phudodragon
Contributor
Contributor

I used the esxupdate command to upgrade the three servers I have from 3.0.2 to 3.5. I downloaded the update files to an NFS mount that each ESX server could access. I then ran the esxupdate command to update the system. I've got full instructions on my blog about using the esxupdate command at .

As for the upgrade from 2.0.x to 2.5, I'd recommend backing up your database first and then performing the upgrade just in case you lose all of your information.

Hope this helps some.

Phudodragon http://vmwareworld.blogspot.com
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smsf
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the guide.

I am planning to upgrade from ESX 3.01 to 3.5 using this guide. However, I'd like to know how I could make use of 3i.

I am running ESX 3.01 on a single host with 16GB of RAM.

Now that 3.5 comes with built-in HA and VCB, do I need to change to a Virtual Center model (as opposed to standalone ESX) in order to take advantage of these new features? I do plan to add additional ESX hosts in the future. If the answer is yes then do I follow a different upgrade path?

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

If this is for production, only the Dell 2950 is supported for 3i (HP DL380 G5 is supported experimentally) - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi35_systems_guide.pdf.

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smsf
Contributor
Contributor

Yes, this is a production host (running a few non-critical VMs) and it is a DL385 G2 (Opteron-based with same storage controller as DL380 G5). VMs are stored locally on 2 RAID arrays connected to the SmartArray P400i controller.

What is the difference between v3i installable and v3i embedded? Why would you install v3i as an upgrade on a v3.x box instead of upgrading to v3.5?

I know DL385 G2 isn't even on the supported hardware list for V3i but I'd like the ask the questions anyway as I am extremely interested in running a hypervisor without OS.

I'm only running non-critical VMs on my ESX host but will be adding critical VMs to it in the future. For now, I can backup the VMs and redo the entire host but I want to make the best decision on this upgrade before I start placing critical VMs on the ESX host.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

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Dave_Mishchenko
Immortal
Immortal

3i embedded will run from flash memory versus installible which you install to a hard drive. The 3i install formats and then repartitions the 1st 750 MB for the install so you won't be able to upgrade a 3.0.x host to 3i unless you consider a new install.

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Mllii
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I've done the basic upgrade for VC 2.5. Please find below my notes:

1. Consider upgrading SQL server to SQL 2005. VC 2.5 is more designed to work with SQL2005 and also SQL2005 is much faster than SQL 2000.

2. VC 2.5 is not working with MSDE, so you need to upgrade MSDE to SQL Express 2005. There is an article on Microsoft web site with upgrade path:

3. Create a proper backup of VC database ( schema update failed few times for me ). Better just detach the DB and make copy of MDF & LDF files and than attach it again.

4. Try to avoid using autorun.exe and install components separately. For VC 2.5 installation run "VMware-vcserver.exe".

5. Use local SQL account with full database permissions ( or "sa" user ) when installation will ask you to provide credentials. I tried with Windows Authentication cause my SQL is located on the same server but it failed.

6. When installing VC do not install Web Components. We are not using it and the web interface is still missing functionality. Also web component is running on "ApacheTomcatJRE" and client is running .Net.

I do not know how much alcohol they took at VMWare before making decision to not to follow one single platform for all components Smiley Happy

7. At the end of VC upgrade process the database upgrade wizard will run. It will tell you how much free space you need to have for successful schema update. Please pay attention to this number and make sure you have enough space. Also, set the VC database log file to unlimited growth ( this can be only related to SQL Express ).

8. As soon as DB schema will be updated VC service will be restarted automatically. So here is the biggest problem I found. VC started to update agents on all ESX hosts, and some of them failed. I just cannot imagine how hard it will be to track in a big datacenters with hundreds of hosts. Anyway, if agent update failed just go to the console and restart "vpxa" and "mgmt-vmware". Than monitor the vpx log file on the host using "tail -f vpxa.log"

I have not installed VC Update Manager and VC Converter as I think it's more related to VC 3.5. Will install these components later when host will be updated to 3.5.

The good thing I found is that VC 2.5 is much more faster and VC client is more responsive than the previous version.

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