vDS upgrade with no downtime

[joeflint]

Hello,

We're upgrading from vSphere v6.7 to v7.

When upgrading from vDS 6.7 to vDS 7 can the upgrade be achieved without downtime to workloads and ESXi hosts? and if not what is the best approach?

Thanks

[Lalegre]

Hey joeflint​,

The VDS upgrade does not involve downtime from any version. There were some issues when upgrading to VDS 6.6 as you can see here: VMware Knowledge Base . However VMware recommends to do a backup of the configuration from the vSphere Client in case something goes wrong.

Try to do this upgrade when there are not a lot of tasks running and personal recommendation is to change DRS to manual before doing this to avoid vMotions starting while you are doing the upgrade. However, "upgrade" is only one click.

And remember, before upgrading the VDS, all your ESXi who consume that VDS MUST be version 7.

[joeflint]

Hi Laierge, thanks and are you sure? According to  Upgrade a vSphere Distributed Switch to a Later Version there may be some downtime, have you tested this? I'm setting up a test environment to confirm.

[Lalegre · Accepted solution]

Hey joeflint​,

The KB I mentioned in the first comment explains that and yes I did many VDS upgrades without any issues and zero downtime in mid/large platforms. But if you want yo have wait for a more "deep dive" answer I completely understand.