VI3 to 3.5 upgrade

[davel1970]

Hi All,

I'm looking at upgrading from VI3 to 3.5. Have any of you guys had experience of this? Any things we need to watch out for?

Also we are using IPStor to provide storage and again we are looking at upgrading it. Has anybody here been through such a process (we're currently running on IPStor 4.5)?

By way of an introduction, I work in local government somewhere between Oxfordshire and Hampshire. Also Simon.l used to be my line manager until he left for bigger and better things back in January.

Cheers,

Dave

[TomHowarth]

Dave,

I have moved your post to the ESX 3.5 forum, you will get a better response there, the forum you posted in is very lightly read by a very select audience,

Tom Howarth

VMware Communities User Moderator

[JonRoderick]

Hi Dave

if you've not been on the forums long, you probably won't have much experience of the kind of hurt a VI upgrade can bring - search on 3.5 upgrade and no doubt you'll find hundreds if not thousands of posts listing various issues and stumbling blocks.

I'm exaggerating a bit but VMware upgrades aren't known for their smoothness - personally, I've not had many problems with it and I think a lot of it comes down to the way in which people have customised their environments...

Anyway, the VMware documentation covering the upgrade procedure is a bit poor so have a read of Mike Laverick's upgrade guide (www.rtfm.ed) - there's some good stuff there.

Things to bear in mind:

If you're using SQL as the backed DB, watch your permissions - there are requirements for rights on the MSDB as well as the Virtual Center DB.

Upgrade VC first, then each host.

Think twice about using Update 2 - there have been some issues (search for 'time bomb') so you might want to go for Update 1 first in LIVE unless there are some killer features you absolutely must have from Update 2.

Test, test, test and test again - and plan first.

Sorry it's a bit woolly but there's so much to consider - can't put it all down here. I'm sure someone else will provide some useful links to good docos.

Good luck.

Jon

[davel1970]

Thanks for your comments Jon. We have gone from 2.5 to 3.02 fairly smoothly - though slowly. Your point about SQL has been noted - thanks :smileyblush:

Dave

[Bastien_P]

Aside the SQL trap that as been already pointed out.. Made couple of upgrade from 3.0 to 3.5 without any issue... dont know if you use some hardware management (hp insight or equivalent) but these might required an upgrade in the same time but for the rest it's pretty much straightfoward..... Didnt touch the update 2 yet and for now let's say that i might wait a bit more than expected .

[JonRoderick]

No worries - I went from 3.0.1 to 3.0.2 to 3.5 Update 1 (with a bit of Update 2 in there to keep things exciting).