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DanielBoddy
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Vcenter upgrade from 4.1 to 5 & move from 2003 to 2008R2

In the lab i have successfully tested an inplace upgrade from ESX4.1 and VC 4.1 to ESXi5 and VC5, everything works as expcted with the upgrade.

However in Production we would like to take the oppportunity to move from 2003 (X64) for the Vcenter to 2008 R2 does anyone have a suggestions on this?

Is it possible during the install of VC 5 to point it at the VC 4 DB (Hosted on a separate SQL server) and for it to recognise that this was VC4 and upgrade it?

Or is the best way to inplace upgrade on 2003 from 4 to 5

then build new 2008 vc and attach the DB to it?

cheers

Dan

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Troy_Clavell
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Is it possible during the install of VC 5 to point it at the VC 4 DB  (Hosted on a separate SQL server) and for it to recognise that this was  VC4 and upgrade it?

Yes.  What I would do is build a new 2008 Standard R2 SP1 VM, setup your 64bit SQL Native Driver, configure your system DSN, test it, install vCenter use existing DB and sit bac and enjoy the upgrade.

Ensure you have dbo on the MSDB and the VCDB, make a backup of your VCDB prior and you should be fine.

Also, remember, shutdown your existing vCenter 4.x instance prior to the upgrade.  You can't have two vCenter sharing the same DB.

Good Luck!

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Troy_Clavell
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Is it possible during the install of VC 5 to point it at the VC 4 DB  (Hosted on a separate SQL server) and for it to recognise that this was  VC4 and upgrade it?

Yes.  What I would do is build a new 2008 Standard R2 SP1 VM, setup your 64bit SQL Native Driver, configure your system DSN, test it, install vCenter use existing DB and sit bac and enjoy the upgrade.

Ensure you have dbo on the MSDB and the VCDB, make a backup of your VCDB prior and you should be fine.

Also, remember, shutdown your existing vCenter 4.x instance prior to the upgrade.  You can't have two vCenter sharing the same DB.

Good Luck!

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DanielBoddy
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Many thanks Troy i will give this a go in the lab this morning and let you know the results

Dan

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DanielBoddy
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Thanks Troy

to confirm

Created new 2008 R2 server

Installed SQL 2008 R2 locally

backed up DB (VMDB and VMUPDATEDB) from 2005 SQL Server (production)

Copied the SSL certificates from C:\All Users\Application Data\VMware\Infrastructure\VCenter Server\SSL

Shutdown current Vcenter server and offlined the databases on SQL Server

Restore certificates to new server C:\Program Data\VMware\\Infrastructure\VCenter Server\SSL (had to create the folder structure)

Restore the Databases to the new 2008 SQL Server instance

Setup the ODBC's (64bit for Vcenter, 32 bit for Update Manager)

ran the Vcenter 5 installer 

followed through the upgrade process - hey presto everything worked - ESX 4.1 hosts auto upgraded their agent versions and reconnected

ran the VM Update Manager install and again all worked fine upgrading the old database

Restarted one host in the cluster and upgraded to ESXi 5.0 with CD - reconnected to Cluster and all working - some new parts to configure but all behaving as expected

In the future we will migrate the DB's off onto a new SQL 2008 R2 server once all the testing is completed - then its time to repeat for Production!

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