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XEmmeX
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ESXI Upgrade from 5.5

Hi all,

I just need a little help.

I have:

- 5 ESXI hosts version 5.1.0 (3872664)

- 1 Vcenter Server Appliance 5.5.0 (2442329)

I need to upgrade all to latest 5.5 release (U3 I suppose).

Should I upgrade ESXI first, before Vcenter upgrade?

Which procedure do you recommend for ESXI upgrade? Should I proceed with upgrade by disc?

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kenbshinn
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XEmmeX​ Do you know if your support contract is current for your vSphere licenses. If so, and you have access to the VMWare License portal you should be able to upgrade the licenses on the portal to 6.x.

As for the actual upgrade, you are correct. vCenter first, then do each host one at a time. You can use the .ISO to perform the upgrade. Just remember to have a backup of your vCenter server and ESXi host configs before you start.

I would recommend deploying a VCSA 6.5 Appliance, if you can, rather they building a Windows Server to run vCenter on.

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daphnissov
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Before you do any upgrading, you need to validate your environment is able to support later versions of vSphere. You do this by checking your hosts against the HCL and any other solutions that are integrated with or talk to vCenter.

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XEmmeX
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Hi daphnissov

it has been already done and it seems my hosts are supporting latest version too, although I just need an upgrade to latest 5.5 version.

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daphnissov
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Do you realize that 5.5 is officially unsupported and end of support?

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XEmmeX
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Yes, I do, but 6.5 upgrade is out of question at the moment (chief directives).

Btw I suppose I need upgrade to 5.5 first, in order to step op with 6.5 version (license key upgrade needed).

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daphnissov
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You at the least should get to 6.0 so you have some support. Staying on 5.5 when your hardware supports it and you have no other blockers is not a smart decision.

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XEmmeX
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I know but unfortunately it doesn't depend on me.

Anyway I could proceed with 5.5 upgrade and go for 6.5 once licensing has been "clarified", isn't it?

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kenbshinn
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I would recommend Upgrading to a supported version of vSphere 6.5 or 6.7.

You should also make sure that your hardware supports the version you want to upgrade to which you said you already did. But I would also recommend checking your hardware for the newer versions of vSphere. That right there might be the reason keeping you at 5.5.

But if you need to stay with 5.5 for some reason then you should upgrade vCenter first, then the ESXi host.

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MikeStoica
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As everyone already said, you should upgrade to 6.5/6.7.

Here is a blog post with step by step on upgrading The vSphere Upgrade Blog Series (Wrap-Up) - VMware vSphere Blog

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XEmmeX
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Hi kenbshinn,

I could only upgrade to 6.5.

6.7 is not supported by my hosts (DL380p gen8).

Just to be clear, my hosts have a Vmware vSphere 5 Enterprise Plus license.

My vcenter license is the standard one.

I could push for a 6.5 upgrade but basically I need to know if it will be cost something and what I should do with license keys of vCenter and ESXI.

Anyway, for a 6.5 upgrade I was thinking about:

- step 1, setup a new 6.5 vcenter server

- step 2, upgrade one single host at time and then add to new vCenter cluster (by ISO I suppose, that's what I was asking in the first post)

Could it be the right way?

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MikeStoica
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For upgrading, follow the blog post series from VMware that I posted.

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kenbshinn
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XEmmeX​ Do you know if your support contract is current for your vSphere licenses. If so, and you have access to the VMWare License portal you should be able to upgrade the licenses on the portal to 6.x.

As for the actual upgrade, you are correct. vCenter first, then do each host one at a time. You can use the .ISO to perform the upgrade. Just remember to have a backup of your vCenter server and ESXi host configs before you start.

I would recommend deploying a VCSA 6.5 Appliance, if you can, rather they building a Windows Server to run vCenter on.

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