5.0 to 5.1 Migration questions

[Kimbie]

We currently have 7 ESXi 5.0 hosts with approx 100 VM's

We want to move the vCentre over onto its self contained hardware and DB, as its currently a virtual one with its DB on a SQL server.

We also want to upgrade to 5.1 at the same time, looking at the documentation we can not upgrade from 5.0 to 5.1 with a hardware change at the same time.

However before the move to 5.1 it needs to be tested before put into production.

So just looking to find some advice on what people have done in the past, the best way to do this, that will not result in downtime or if downtime a tiny amount of it.

We were thinking of building a new 5.1 environment and just migrate the hosts from the 5.0 vCentre to the new 5.1 system, but looking into we will I belive lose our vSwitch configs, resource pools etc?

Would this path work:

Install 5.0 onto the new hardware along with a self contained SQL database, copy over the DB from the existing system, keep it on an isolated network and test to make sure it works, obviously it will not have access to the hosts would this be a problem?  Also the network hardware will change.

Assuming that is possible, could we then upgrade to 5.1 and restore network connectivity to our live network, and it should all work?

Thanks

Kimbie

[weinstein5]

Yes that will work - in reagrds not being able to connect to the existing hosts you will just see them disconnected in the inventory -

[memaad]

Hi,

Are  you planning to have same vCenter name and same IP. Then every thing should go smooth.

Regards

MOhammed

[admin]

I would recommend the below: - take a backup of the DB. - Migrate the DB to your new physical DB machine and load it there. - Now install vCenter 5.1 pointing to the new DB on physical machine.

[Kimbie]

@memaad - We would probally change the server name and IP address, though if that will cause problems we should be able to keep the same name and IP.

@AakashJ - Thanks for the info, so just to clarify I want to do the following:

1. Backup the current DB and move the backup file onto the new vCentre server

2. Install vCentre 5.0 with local SQL using the same passwords as our current setup

3. Put new vCentre onto an isolated network and restore the DB backup over the top

4. Check to make sure its all working

5. Upgrade to 5.1

6. Power down the old 5.0 vCentre

7. Restore main network connectivitiy and reconnect to the hosts

Does that seem about right and trouble free as possible?

Thanks

Kimbie

[admin]

2nd step needs to be corrected.. After you move the backup, restore the db.. Now install 5.1  pointing to the restored db...

[Kimbie]

Ah ok thanks

[admin]

Please  mark it as helpful or correct