Best practise for upgrade of vCenter 2.5u5 to 4.1

[GreyhoundHH]

Hi,

we're currently running a vCenter 2.5 Update 5 on Windows 2003 Standard 32Bit which we need to upgrade to vCenter 4. Unfortunatley the latest release 4.1 needs a 64bit OS...

What is the best practise to update our vCenter to 4.1 and keep all performance data? I assume we have to do this in severalsteps or not?

1) Update vCenter to 4.0 Update 2

2) Backup of the updated vCenter database

3) Perform a fresh install of Windows 2008 64Bit

4) Perform a fresh install of vCenter 4.0 Update 2

5) Restore the database

6) Update to vCenter 4.1

Is this correct or am I missing something? Is there an easier/better way?

Any help appreciated.

[vmroyale · Accepted solution]

Hello.

kb 1022104 contains the best practices, and the Upgrade Guide is also a great resource to use for planning this upgrade. Follow the steps in the Upgrade Guide and everything should go smoothly.

Here is a really rough list of steps, taken from the Upgrade Guide:

01. Build out new 64-bit VM for vCenter

02. Prep new vCenter VM for SQL connectivity/dependencies

03. Backup the existing database.

04. Backup current vCenter data using the Data Migration Tool

05. Use the data migration tool to start the vCenter Server installer and restore the vCenter Server configuration to the destination machine.

06. Shut down the old vCenter server.

07. Restore the vCenter Server Configuration and Install vCenter Server on the New server

08. Update the vCenter Server Name for Plug-Ins (If the new vCenter has a different name)

09. Test

Good Luck!