Esxi 5.1 and 4.1 Version

[faamin01]

In our environment there are of around 40 Hosts and around 5 VM or more on each host being configured. around on 10 Esxi host 4.1 version is using and 5.1 on rest. please share the risks and operational issues we can face. one more thing that 4.1 is using at our Backup side.

[bayupw · Accepted solution]

Hi

vSphere 4.x is End of Support per 2014/05/21 and will be End of Technical Guidance in 2016 as per VMware Lifecycle here: http://www.vmware.com/go/lifecycle

If you create a new VM in ESXi host 5.1 using Hardware Version 9 or 8, you will not be able to migrate and power it on ESXi host 4.1 since ESXi 4.x only support Hardware Version 7, see this KB: VMware KB: ESXi/ESX hosts and compatible virtual machine hardware versions list

If you are planning to use vSphere Replication, you will need to upgrade the 4.x host to 5.x as the minimum requirements is 5.x as per KB: VMware KB: vSphere Replication FAQ

If you are running any other VMware products or 3rd party software/plugins that talks to vCenter/ESXi, you will need to check the compatibility version.

e.g. VDP/VDR: if you are using VDP for backup, the minimum version is 5.1 and VDP cannot talks to 4.x hosts. So you will need to maintain 2 version of backup software, this is just one example

[faamin01]

thanks please advice from where we can see the hardware version of particular host

[Browlin]

hi,

You can find the hardware version individual VM on summary tab in vcenter .

also you can find the hardware version while creating a new VM .

also you can see the host compatible chart below

VMware KB: ESXi/ESX hosts and compatible virtual machine hardware versions list

regards

Brows