Upgrade of dvswitch from 6.5 to 7.0

[Magiske68]

Hi,

We have a customer that has upgraded from vSphere 6.5 to 7.0

Now they want to upgrade the dvswitches. The documentation states:

"If your current vSphere Distributed Switch version is 6.5, then you might experience a brief interruption to network traffic, of a few milliseconds, while upgrading your vSphere Distributed Switch to a later version. For more information, see KB 52621."

The customer asks if the few milliseconds are just a missed arp request or if this could have other ramifications?

They need as little as possible downtime, possibly none at all. And also need to understand the risks! Would it be better to create a new dvswitch and move VMs one at a time, ect??

What would the recommendation be? 

/M

[maksym007]

Thx for raising this question. I have the same issue. 

I thought to do this on weekend but before with all dvs config backups.

[maksym007]

who could support us with this topic?

[Shen88]

@Magiske68@maksym007, please consider reading an earlier post related to the query raised here.

[maksym007]

yeah KB is known, but still will be good to hear from someone - how it was during live implementation. 

[Magiske68]

Have read most of it. Nothing definitive. And some good info on how to recover.

But would like to understand the pitfalls/shortcomings of live upgrading,  so the customer can make an informed decision. 

[shiva_malur]

vDS switch upgrade do not require a downtime. Since its customer, instead of over commiting, possible you can mention 1-2 ping failures to be on the safer side. Upgrade will take 

 - Raise a pro active support case with VMware and mention about your activity

 - Backup the VDS switches

 - Make sure the resources are balanced and disable DRS while upgrading. 

 - Upgrade the vds switches.

Good luck. 

[maksym007]

I checked today, my dVS's have 6.6 version. So it will be done in new year already.