Building a new vCenter and bringing in existing ESXi hosts

[tractng]

Hello,

Just trying to get some ideas.  We are having issues with upgrading our vCenter from 5.5 to 6.5u1.  Support suggested to build a new vCenter appliance and bring in the existing ESXi hosts.

So can I build a new vCenter appliance 6.5u1 and then bring existing ESXi hosts version 5.5 (we have 5 hosts, 150 VMs) without downtime?  Of course I would have to dis-joined each ESXi host from the current vCenter.  Would this cause any downtime to the VMs?  We have a shared storage for the VMs.

1) Build new vCenter (called vCenter2) on one of the existing ESXi hosts (for example host1)

2) Dis-join host1 from the current vCenter (called vCenter1).

3) Join host1 to new vCenter (vCenter2)

4) Do all the same for all the rest of the hosts

5) set HA, DRS, etc

6) set EVC

7) Vmotion the VMs off one host (host1), then upgrade host1 to 6.5

😎 Repeat step 7 for hosts 2-5

Note: We are about 10 months away from getting new hardware for this production cluster.  So its it even worth it to do all of this (yes we are aware of 5.5 being out of support soon)?

Thanks,

TT

[Devi94]

do you have standard switch in your environment or DVS ?

[Vijay2027]

All the steps looks good to me.

On a side note you will have configure identity source once new vCenter 6.5 is deployed.

https://www.virten.net/2017/01/how-to-add-ad-authentication-in-vcenter-6-5/

And upgrade vcenter license: VMware Knowledge Base

[tractng]

Standard switch. Nothing showing DVS.  I will confirm tomorrow.

[tractng]

So no downtime on the VMs in the hosts?

[Vijay2027]

If standard switch then no downtime. Lets wait for your confirmation tomorrow.

[tractng]

Just verified, "vSphere Distributed Switch" has nothing configured on each host. 

[Vijay2027]

So no downtime if you connect the hosts to new vcenter.

[Devi94]

so one thing you need to do is, enable EVC in your cluster and then move hosts.

[tractng]

Devi94,

Enable EVC on the new vCenter correct?

[Devi94]

right.

[tractng]

Thanks.

Had it on #6.

I am assuming this procedure, I won't have to touch datastore or any type of network settings correct?

[Devi94 · Accepted solution]

that needs to be #2

[Devi94]

as you are having standard switch and shared datastore, you do not need to touch network and storage.

[tractng]

Last question before I hit the bed .  I am thinking of dis-joining two hosts (instead of all 5) and bringing them into the new vCenter and then upgrade them to 6.5.  If the 2 hosts upgrade to 6.5 without issue, then I can bring the rest of the other hosts from the old vCenter in at a later time and do the same.  This will work?

Revised:

1) Build new vCenter (called vCenter2) on one of the existing ESXi hosts (for example host1)

2) set EVC on new vCenter

3) Dis-join host1 from the current vCenter (called vCenter1).

4) Join host1 to new vCenter (vCenter2)

5) Dis-join host2 from the current vCenter (called vCenter1)

6) Join host2 to new vCenter (vCenter2)

7) set HA, DRS, etc

😎 Vmotion VMs between host1 & host2

9) Upgrade the hosts1/2 to ESXi 6.5

10) perform steps #3-5 for other hosts

11) Update license key

[Devi94]

it will work as long as you can keep one host out of two in maintenance.

[Vijay2027]

And configure identity source for domain logins.

[tractng]

Regarding dis-joining the hosts from old vCenter, does it matter the sequence of the host?  I noticed host1 is a "master".  In actual move, we probably want to dis-join host1 somewhere in the middle of sequence.

Thanks again.

TT

[Devi94]

It doesn’t matter. After removing master host, new master will be elected by HA process.

[tractng]

When the host is added to the new vCenter, can I continue temporarily when we were warned the license key of the host being on both vCenter? 

Currently the new vCenter is on a 60 days trial since we just created it today.  Of course we plan to get an updated 6.5 keys for production once it is done.

We proceeded anyways.  Just want to know the impact of it.

TT