Vsphere Essentials Plus 6.0 to 6.7 licensing questions

[jf0001]

Hi all,

I'm just planning upgrading a Vsphere 6.0 to 6.7 with SRM replicating to a second site and I just have some licensing questions. I am currently licensed for my hosts correctly.

I have vSphere 6 Essentials Plus and vCentre Server 6 Essentials licenses along with Site Recovery Manager 6 Standard (25 VM Pack).

I can't find a definitive Yes/No answer but Can someone just tell me that I can upgrade from 6.0 to 6.7 with these licenses and still be compliant.

Also just looking at downloading the Site Recovery Manager ISO and I am showing Version 8.1.1 - Can I use that or do I have to use version 6.x.

I just don't want to start and then find I can't license it.

Thanks

James

[A13xxx · Accepted solution]

6.0 to 6.7 uses the same key as it is the same version. You may need to check the compatibility matrix to find out if your hardware is compliant with 6.7

[jf0001]

Thanks A13xxx,

That's the answer I was looking for. Do you know about using the Replication V8.11 with the 6.7 licenses please?

My hardware is complaint.

James

[A13xxx]

you will need v8 for vsphere 6.7 support

[jf0001]

Thank you, my plan is to install my vcenter appliance 6.7, update my replication appliances to 6.5.0 as currently on 6.1.1 and then to 8.1.1 and finally install a new windows box for the site recovery manager.

One last question if you will indulge me. As the existing windows vcenter will get junked. Should I uninstall the Site Recovery Manager first and then then deploy to a new windows vm after?

Thanks again

james

[A13xxx]

Is your SRM installed on the same server as the vCenter? If so you will need to migrate this to another server to preserve your SRM capabilities. You may need to look at the compatibility matrix to see if you can run a higher version of SRM with your vCenter or if you need to migrate it to another server on the same version.

The vCenter upgrade script will do a lot of checks and if SRM is on the same server it will flag this up.

Check the VMware Knowledge Base  for the vCenter upgrade sequence. It might be you just upgrade vCenter and later upgrade SRM if it is on another server.

[jf0001]

Hi!

The SRM was on the same windows Vcenter server. The migration assistant did flag it up so I removed it from both ends as we actually had no Recovery plans on the server - were only doing the replication to the target site at this point.

I then migrated my windows Vcenter 6.0 to the Linux Appliance 6.7 which is working fine. I then upgraded my 6.1.1 replication appliance to 6.5.0 and then migrated to 8.1.1 successfully however at this point the replication service on it won't start which I'm hoping is to do with the other end not being completed yet.

So at this point I'm just doing the Venter server appliance migration at the target site and will follow the same steps for the replication appliance and pray that it works otherwise it'll be a call to vmware support.

Will do the hosts from esxi 6.0 to 6.7 last and then finally commission two SRM servers and get SRM working properly (long overdue task!).

Any comments on why the replication service won't start at this point welcome!

James

[jf0001]

Well I got a not unexpected outcome. I could not for love nor money get my existing migrated replication appliances going. The hms loghs kept moaning about keystore problems and even manually unregistering them and their solution users would not get them going so I scrapped them and deployed two brand new 8.1.1.1 appliances from the ovf template which worked straight away and registered. Site pairing went straight through and now I jsut have to resync my VMs, the existing copies at the target site are only about 50 odd hours out of date and I only have 25 replications so rebuilding it isn't the biggest problem in the world. Thankfully my sites have a 1gb link between them so should be minimal pain.

Damned replication, vmware you really need to sort this out, you only have to look at it wrong and it all blows up. I do hope these clean new 8.1.x versions will behave better in the future as my experience with the 6.0.x version have been nothing but painful!

James

[A13xxx]

The pure hassle of this product just puts me of using it. Glad you got it all sorted