Connect ESXi 4.1 Hosts with dvSwitches to vSphere 5.1 Server

[BenBrazil]

Hi,

I am currently working on upgrading our vSphere 4.1 environment to vSphere 5.1. My environment is as follows:

I have a vSphere 4.1 vCenter Server with ESXi 4.1 Hosts. All of the Hosts use dvSwitches.

I have now built a separate vSphere 5.1 vCenter Server with ESXi 5.1 Hosts. I am again using dvSwitches on the vSphere 5.1 Hosts and have built the dvSwitches as version 5.1.0 dvSwitches. The dvSwitch configuration are identical between the 4.1 vCenter Server and the 5.1 vCenter Server and the hardware configuration is also the same.

My plan for migrating the VM's from the 4.1 environment to the 5.1 environment is to disconnect the 4.1 Hosts from the 4.1 vSphere vCenter Server and then connect the 4.1 Hosts to the 5.1 vSphere vCenter Server. The VM's would remain on the 4.1 Hosts whilst disconnecting from the 4.1 environment and connecting to the 5.1 environment.

My question is how to handle the networking configuration on the 4.1 Hosts when connecting the 4.1 Hosts to the 5.1 vSphere vCenter Server. The ESXi 4.1 Hosts will not be able to use the dvSwitches on the 5.1 vCenter Server as the dvSwitch is version 5.1.0 and therefore not compatible with the 4.1 Hosts.

I've got a couple of ideas which I've not tested yet. Firstly I could create another set of dvSwitches on the 5.1 vCenter Server configured as version 4.1.0 dvSwitches and then connect the 4.1 Hosts. I am not sure however that this would work.

The other idea is to configure vSwiches on the 4.1 Hosts prior to disconnecting from the 4.1 vCenter server and then connect the Hosts to the 5.1 environment. I would then vMotion the VM's to the 5.1 Hosts. This is how I migrated our 3.5 Hosts to 4.1 and worked well. I would rather not do this however as it would mean extra work with configuring vSwitches on the 4.1 Hosts just to transport the VM's over to the 5.1 environment.

Any suggestions on these ideas of ways in which this could be achieved would be most appreciated.

Thanks,

Ben

[weinstein5]

I am assuming both environments see the same shared storage - I shut down the VM in the vSphere 4 environment and remove it from the vSphere 4 inventory - I would then add the VM to the vSphere 5 environment -

[BenBrazil]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. Storage is shared between the two environments. I've thought about shutting down and removing from inventory but only as a last resort option. I'd like to migrate the VM's onto the 5.1 hosts without downtime on the VM.

[Jahnin]

If no downtime on the VM is important, configuring vSwitches would be a safe bet.

[BenBrazil]

Hi,

Thanks. I think that is the route I'm going to go down - configuring dvSwitches on the 4.1 Hosts and then connecting to the 5.1 vCenter Server.