We are running a 6.7 vcenter server appliance and 6.7 hosts connected to it. With the change in the partition tables, we want to reinstall everything from scratch so I am going to be deploying a 7.0 vcsa and then duplicating all the settings from the existing 6.7 vcsa. I will then one at a time put a host in maintenance mode, disconnect the esxi host from the 6.7 cluster and install 7.0 on it and connect it to the new 7.0 cluster. I will then use a 6.7 host to move some vm workloads over to the 7.0 cluster. Would appreciate any help in confirming my plan which is as follows:
Phase 1: Deploy new vcsa using wizard
1) IP configuration (other networking info such as DNS, NTP)
2) hostname
3) root credentials
4) esxi host name and IP the vcsa will be deployed to
5) datastore it will be deployed to
6) deployment size – Small (100 hosts or 1000 VMs) we have under a 1000 VMs
Phase 2: Duplicate all settings, folders and folder permissions, illumio rules
Use existing VCSA as a reference to configure all vcsa settings
Phase 3: Build new ESXi server
Put one of the existing 6.7 ESXi hosts in maintenance mode. Disconnect and remove from inventory and install 7.0
Phase 4: Move remaining hosts from 6.7 to the new 7.0 vc
Do you have any issues with the current configuration (vCSA, ESXi hosts)?
If not, you may achieve the same result with way less effort.
Since you plan to re-partition the ESXi hosts, I assume that you don't have anything on the local VMFS datastore, i.e. no VMs, templates, or scratch files. To achieve the re-partitioning during the host upgrade, simply delete the VMFS datastore/partition prior to running the host upgrade.
For the host upgrade itself, upload the ESXi Offline Bundle (make sure you get the right one, e.g. a vendor customized one) to a folder on a shared datastore, and determine the "Profilename".
esxcli software sources profile list -d "/vmfs/volumes/datastoreX/folderX/<OfflineBundle>.zip"
The upgrade can then be performed using:
esxcli software profile install -d "/vmfs/volumes/datastoreX/folderX/<OfflineBundle>.zip" -p <Profilname> --ok-to-remove
If the command returns the "Installation Result"
"Message: The update completed successfully, but the system needs to be rebooted for the changes to be effective."
type reboot to restart the host.
In case you want to test the upgrade command, append --dry-run to the command line.
André
For some business reasons and to limit overall exposure to issues encountered during an upgrade, we were asked to perform a parallel build.