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oliver_g
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Upgrade from vCenter 6.0 to vCenter 6.5

Hello Forum Members,

I am planning to upgrade vCenter Server 6.0 Essentials to vCenter Server 6.5

I am planning to upgrade all our ESXi hosts from vSphere 6.0 to vSphere 6.5 U2 - the max for our platforms.

I have received good info from internet, vmware, and the forum. but I still have questions.

I have seen where upgrading vCenter Server is really a migration to another ESXi host, then changing ips, etc.

We are using an HP DL380p for the "host" for the vCenter Server. Am I required to have another physical host

to perform the upgrade/migration or can I perform upgrade/migration to the same host, or another vm?

That part of the upgrade is not clear to me.

Thanks for a good source of information,

Oliver G

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a_p_
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It's indeed not easy to find about supported upgrade paths, with all the back-in-time things, KB articles, ...

It looks like we can upgrade from our version, 6.0 U3 (no letters, etc) to 6.5U2, but I would like a conformation that that is really do-able.

Anyway, in your case with vCSA running v6.0U3 <= U3e/7924803 (see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2143838​), there shouldn't be any issued with upgrading to the latest v6.5 (currently v6.5U2e) build.

It also looks like we need to backup the postgres database prior to upgrade/migration.

It's always good to have up-to-date backups. Anyway, the upgrade procedure will deploy a new VM, migrate the data from the old one, and finally power this one down. So in case something during the upgrade doesn't work as expected, you'll still have the option to shutdown the new vCSA, and power on the old one again.

André

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a_p_
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I have seen where upgrading vCenter Server is really a migration to another ESXi host, then changing ips, etc.

Not exactly. The upgrade/migrate procedure (depending on whether you are currently running vCenter Server for Windows, or the vCSA Appliance) to the new vCenter Server Virtual Appliance deploys a new VM, which requires a temporary IP address. During the upgrade/migration process, all settings will be migrated to the new vCSA, which - after shutting down the old vCenter - assumes the identity of the old one.

André

MikeStoica
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Here you have a great blog series about upgrading vSphere Upgrade Series Part 1: Preparing to Upgrade - VMware vSphere Blog

oliver_g
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Hello Andre and MikeS,

Thanks for the reply to my post. I am starting from ground zero on this,

and as I go along - checking vmware online info, and at the same time

discovering more about the current vmware environment I have, I seem to have more

questions.

Finally I do have info on the environment - hardware and software:

we have a vCenter "appliance" - this is a vm running version 6.0, under SUSE-Linux ver. 11 Enterprise

The PSC is embedded, and certs are vmca

The vCenter vm resides on an ESXi host - running vSphere 6.0

Our environment consists of the vCenter Server/Appliance and 3 ESXi hosts that each contain vms.

So the plan is to upgrade the vCenter server vm to 6.5 U2, the once complete (and working), upgrade each of the three hosts.

I would think it would be a good idea to upgrade the host were the vCenter vm/appliance is located as well (?).

One last question inregard to the Suse Linux - I see where vmware says for 6.5 it must have Suse-12.

So would I have to create a vm with Suse-12 prior to the upgrade?  Or does the upgrade do that as part of the

process?

We do not have VMware Update Manager

I will check the blog post as well,

Thanks,

OliverG

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oliver_g
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Hello MikeStoica,

I will check the blog postings. Thank you very much for the reply!

Oliver G

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a_p_
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So would I have to create a vm with Suse-12 prior to the upgrade?  Or does the upgrade do that as part of the process?

You don't have to do anything manually. The upgrade procedure will deploy a new VM, and migrate all the settings. vCSA6.5 will also change from SLES to VMware's Photon OS.

In fact, don't even consider to update anything manually (e.g. VMware Tools) on the appliance. VMware will take care of everything with its upgrades and/or patches for the appliance.

André

oliver_g
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Hello Andre,

We are using linux based hosts and vCenter servers.

Reading the blog posts were really helpful. I have reviewed the interop matrices, and

other data that I could find. I now have a pretty good idea of our environment.

We have two vCenter Server appliances - both at vCenter 6.0 U3, Suse-11, with postgres embedded PSC/database

we have 6 ESXi hosts, and around 23 vms divided on these hosts. The hosts are running ESXi 6.0 U3 (build build 5050593).

We are considering upgrading to 6.5 U2 - vCenter servers and ESXi hosts. Our hardware only supports going to 6.5U2, not 6.7.

I saw on the upgrade matrix that vCenter 6.0 U3(a,b,g, etc) will not upgrade, and fails: VMware Knowledge Base

It looks like we can upgrade from our version, 6.0 U3 (no letters, etc) to 6.5U2, but I would like a conformation that

that is really do-able. It also looks like we need to backup the postgres database prior to upgrade/migration.

Any suggestions on this?

Thanks for the replies,

Oliver G

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a_p_
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It's indeed not easy to find about supported upgrade paths, with all the back-in-time things, KB articles, ...

It looks like we can upgrade from our version, 6.0 U3 (no letters, etc) to 6.5U2, but I would like a conformation that that is really do-able.

Anyway, in your case with vCSA running v6.0U3 <= U3e/7924803 (see https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2143838​), there shouldn't be any issued with upgrading to the latest v6.5 (currently v6.5U2e) build.

It also looks like we need to backup the postgres database prior to upgrade/migration.

It's always good to have up-to-date backups. Anyway, the upgrade procedure will deploy a new VM, migrate the data from the old one, and finally power this one down. So in case something during the upgrade doesn't work as expected, you'll still have the option to shutdown the new vCSA, and power on the old one again.

André