vCenter Upgrade & Host Agents

[JustyC]

Planning to upgrade vCenter 5.0 to 5.5 in the near future.  Half of our hosts are  ESX 4.0 and the other half ESXi 5.0.  Will host agents need to be upgraded as part of the vCenter upgrade ?  If so,

is that something we can get back to at a later date or have to do during the same update time window ?  We currently do not use Update Manager.  How easy is it to use Update Mgr. to do the agent

updates ?  Or can they be done manually host by host ?  Thanks.

[a_p_]

The host agent will automatically be installed on the hosts once vCenter Server is upgraded, no need to do this manually and no reboot is required.

André

[JustyC]

I seem to recall reading that some or all hosts may not be connected in vCenter after the upgrade to 5.5.  Would that be a possible ? 

[a_p_]

That shouldn't be the case when you upgrade vCenter Server. Anyway, in case this happens you should be able to re-connect the hosts. Just make sure the hosts do not have "Lock Down" mode enabled to avoid issues with re-connecting in case it's required.

André

[rcporto]

Maybe you read about the SSL settings on vCenter that must be checked before upgrade, take a look:

http://wahlnetwork.com/2013/01/31/vcenter-5-1-upgrade-planned-verify-ssl-certificate-checking/

VMware KB: Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.1 setup has detected that SSL certificate verification of t...

[JustyC]

OK, but should the upgrade to 5.5 have issues and I need to fail back to vCenter 5.0 (system state backup) the hosts may already have had their agents updated.

Wouldn't that case issues ?

[a_p_]

I don't think that there's an easy way back once the new agents have been installed. However, the agents will be upgraded after vCenter Server has been upgraded, so there shouldn't be any issues if you need to roll-back prior to finishing the upgrade. I did a couple of upgrade so far and the only issues I had were due to invalid characters in the SSO password, and with an upgrade of a vCenter Server that has previously been upgraded from v4.1 with 512-Bit certificates.

André

[JustyC]

I will keep my fingers crossed for success.  Regarding certificates.... ours are expired  - we have just been ignoring the warning messages.   I was going to use the default VMware supplied certs when upgrading to 5.5.  Do you see

any possible issues with that ?  Also, if I can ask a question on SSO site name.... we have only 1 vCenter now.  The actual Windows computer name is called vCenter.    What is your recommendation on a SSO site name.
Should I use the fully qualified name of the server (example - vcenter.companyx.com or can I create something new and more definitive like vcenter-corp-usa ?  Thanks.

[a_p_]

I'm not 100% sure with the expired certificate, but I'd probably replace it prior to upgrading, to avoid possible installation issues. For the SSO Site name, I usually use the "Default-first-Site" name in small environments as it doesn't really matter.

André