upgrading from Esxi 4.0

[joeseppi]

So, attempting to do an upgrade from Esxi 4.0.  Yes it is about time.

What might be a rational path?   In place upgrades, or install 6.5 clean and import/convert the VM's in one swell foop?

Also,I notice there is no "fat" client available, apparently, but I also see references to "Vsphere Web Client" and "Vsphere Client", both of which appear to be browser based.  I admit to confusion, consternation and etc.

Also, too, if I install 6.5, rather than upgrade in place, I was thinking to install on a fresh disk, in the current box, make that the boot device and go from there.  After doing exports/backups of the existing stuff and maybe cloning the current boot device.   Good thinking, or bad stinking?

[joeseppi]

Forced to do my own research, (rats!), seems the only rational path is to do an in place upgrade to 5.1 u3.   Gets messy after that, so building a new machine for newer versions might be best, them migrating to it.

[daphnissov]

Highly recommended to NOT do an upgrade from this version. Best to install new provided the hardware and firmware support it.

[joeseppi]

Why so, if I may ask?    Did not notice that in any of my admittedly cursory reading of upgrade docs.

[daphnissov]

Any upgrades than span the technical equivalent of a millennium are very often either problematic or, at best, non-optimal for a variety of reasons. One of the dominant reasons is that some portions of the hypervisor can cause upgrades to fail because of such huge feature gaps and changes made to the OS. It's just the reality of enterprise development that there are only so many permutations of source versions and destination versions that can be tested with absolute success. The farther the gap is between source and destination, the higher the probability that the upgrade will either fail entirely, or produce serious issues because not all upgrade paths are taken it into consideration. The second main reason that makes this distance of upgrade non-optimal is due to legacy settings that are carried forward as opposed to updated in accordance with best and modern practices. The reason for this is because the vendor would rather make no changes (in hopes of doing no harm) rather than make them and change an established operational and performance model. It has just been my experience over the years that it is always better to do a fresh install when you stray this far from the current release rather than trying to risk an in-place upgrade.