Question regarding the upgrade of vCenter 4.1 to 5.0 U1 (database)

[pegasus20111014]

We are looking at upgrading vCenter 4.1 to 5.0 U1.  Looking at the compatiblity matrix, it seems that Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise (SP3) 32-bit is not compatible with vCenter 5.0  U1.  That being said, we have another SQL cluster running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise R2 (64 bit). I'm showing that vCenter 5.0 U1 is compatible with this, but this version of SQL is not compatible with vCenter 4.1.  These are shared database servers and performing an upgrade on these and the schedule downtime to do so would be daunting and not feasible right now.  Is there a way to upgrade vCenter 4.1 to 5.0 U1 by first migrating the database from the 2005 SQL server to the 2008 SQL R2 server then run the update?  Or is this not possible because apparently vCenter 4.1 is not compatible with SQL 2008 R2?  I'm just trying to find the best way of upgrading vCenter without having to take down our shared database server which would mean downtime for our hospitals.  We are hoping not to have to purchase a new database server to do this either as an intermediate step from going to vCenter 4.1 to 5.0 U1 on SQL 2008 R2 ENT (64 bit).

[pegasus20111014]

Well. researching further it looks like vCenter 4.1 U2 is compatible with both the version of SQL I listed in my previous post (MS SQL 2005 ENT SP3 and MS SQL 2008 ENT R2).  So, i just wanted to verify is this is the only or best upgrade path for us:

1.  Upgrade vCenter from 4.1 to 4.1 U2

2.  Migrate the vCenter SQL database to our MS SQL 2008 R2 Enterprise 64 bit server

3. Upgrade vCenter from 4.1 U2 to 5.0 U1