Upgrade vCenter 5.5 to 6.5 - which strategy is preferable

[ischukovde]

Good day!

I have a vCenter Appliance 5.5 and 3 ESXi 5.5 servers in a HA cluster.

I need to upgrade to version 6.5.

Which strategy is preferable?

strategy 1.

-Perform a direct Upgrade from vCenter Appliance 5.5 to version 6.5.
-Then upgrade ESXi servers to version 6.5

strategy 2.

-Install the new instance vCenter Appliance 6.5 on the same ESXi server where vCenter 5.5 is installed
-Reconnect all ESXi servers from old vCenter 5.5 to new vCenter 6.5
-Create a new HA cluster on new vCenter 6.5
-Upgrade ESXi servers to version 6.5

[rnandula]

If you select strategy 2 - do you assign new IP for the fresh installation? If yes then how about the solutions that were integrated to VC, DVS configuration, and other configurations?

I would suggest performing an upgrade from 5.5 to 6.5, Please follow the official VMware documentation before you decide - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-65-upgrade-guide.pdf