Upgrading vCenter OS from Windows 2008 R2 to Windows 2012 R2

[Zade]

I am looking at upgrading my vCenter server to Windows 2012 R2, I am doing this as an out of place upgrade, so I have the Windows 2008 R2 machine to fail back onto if I encounter any issues, I will be using the same IP and hostname. Something which crossed my mind is the fact we are not on the latest version of vCenter, I think we are currently on 5.5.0 and the latest version is now 5.5.0u1c.

Our DB is sat on a different server, so when migrating I was going to reinstall vCenter pointing at the database without overwriting, one thing I am unsure about is could I also upgrade vCenter whilst doing this move, so in theory run the latest install of 5.5.0u1c as opposed to 5.5.0 on the new Windows 2012 R2 server?

[Atul_gen]

- Deploy new OS 2012R2 and give same IP and hostname which you are using for old operating system.

- Take database backup for safer sise.

- Take SSL certificate back up from old server from C:\ProgramData\VMware\VirtualCenter Server\SSL

- Create the appropriate System DSN connections on the new vCenter Server host. For more information, see the Viewing and modifying the database server section of vCenter Server installation fails with ODBC and DSN errors (1003928).

- If the new VirtualCenter server uses the same hostname and IP address, the SSL certificates can be copied to the new server to eliminate the need to reconnect the ESXi/ESX hosts.

-  To copy the VirtualCenter Server SSL certificates:

1. Create the this folder structure on the new server:
2. C:\ProgramData\VMware\VirtualCenter Server\SSL

- To copy the VirtualCenter Server SSL certificates:- Copy these files from the original VirtualCenter server to the new server, preserving the folder structure:

• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.key
• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.pfx
• C:\ProgramData\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter Server\SSL\rui.crt

-  Initiate Virtual center 5.5 fresh installation see the setup guide for 5.5

-When prompted, select Use existing database, and provide the correct credentials to that database.

- When prompted, select to not re-initialize the database to preserve all of your inventory data.

- Reboot the machine after the installation completes.

For details info see the below KB article. http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=585044...

[Zade]

Thanks Atul, I pretty much understand this part, but my question is could I install a slightly newer version of the vCenter software onto the new vCenter host?

Or would I have to...

Install the same version of the software on the new server then upgrade this to the latest version of vCenter?

[Atul_gen · Accepted solution]

This is up to you. What you want to install. You can directly install newer version of the vCenter software onto the new vCenter host. It will install fresh binary of vCenter and upgrade the Database.

Both options will work. Make sure before installing vCenter server take DB backup as it is recommended. If something goes wrong then you can rollback and try it out again.

Thanks,

Atul