vCenter Upgrade 5.5 to 6.5/6.7

[ChevUribe]

Hi All,

We have a partner whose infrastructure is still running in vSphere 5.5.

We had been telling them to do the upgrade 2 years ago but was not implemented since their backup and multi storage management system is not compatible with version 6/6/5/6.7.

But due to audit inspection, they replaced their backup system and multi storage management system which can work with the new vSphere version.

They are using vSphere Distributed Switch for version 5.5.

We are thinking if we can deploy a new vCenter Server 6.5/6.7 and just join the hosts and then upgrade them to 6.5/6.7.

We can do manually the network config for the distributed switch but my question is, can we backup the version 5.5 distributed switch and upload it to the 6.5/6.7 vcenter?

O after installation of vCenter 6.5/6.7 and just add the host then the distributed switch will also be migrated?

if there is any suggestions better than ours, we are willing to accept it.

Thank you!

[MikeStoica]

I think this blog series The vSphere Upgrade Blog Series (Wrap-Up) - VMware vSphere Blog  might be the answer to all your questions.

[vwaghule]

vSphere Distributed Switch 5.5 is compatible till vcenter 6.5.

If you upgrade/migrate your vcenter to 6.5 it will still be available, later you can plan on upgrading Distributed Switch to higher version as well.

Upgrade a vSphere Distributed Switch to a Later Version

[Raj1988]

Why do you want to install new vCenter ? Just upgrade/migrate to 6.5 or 6.7 version .

[Alex_Romeo]

Hi,

Make a backup of the vcenter and then upgrade to 6.5u2 which is the latest compatible version.

If you want to upgrade to 6.7 u2 you have to repeat the ugrade from 6.5u2.

If you do as I wrote above, for VDS there are no problems and it's compatible

Alessandro Romeo

[NathanosBlightc]

Hi

No need to install new vCenter. You can upgrade it or even migrate from windows-based vCenter server to VCSA. Every managed-objects by vCenter like VDS will work when you upgrade then vCenter. Remember even you lose the vCenter server, your VDS still works (in Orphan-state).

In my experience I think it's better to upgrade to VCSA version 6.0, upgrade VDS to new version then upgrade to version 6.7 and upgrade VDS to this version.