Upgrading vCenter 4.0 to 4.1

[peter79]

Guys,

I currently have vCenter 4.0 installed on a Windows Server 2003 32 bit VM.  I need to upgrade to 4.1 which means I need to build a new 64 bit vCenter server.  I'm trying to find a procedure document online for this but cant seem to find one.  Also I'm not sure what to do with the current vCenter database does it need to be upgraded as well or can I just import it to the new 64 bit vCenter server?

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.   

[a_p_]

For the correct procedure on upgrading to vSphere 4.1, please see http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf

Depending on your environment (especially if it is a small one) you may also consider to do a new/fresh installation. However this depends on how you use vCenter and whether or not you need to keep historical performance data.

André

[peter79]

Andre,

Thanks for the link I found the doc myself shortly after putting up my post.  I plan on doing a fresh install of vCenter 4.1 on a new Windows 2008 64 bit VM.  My questions are as follows.

Can the existing database by migrated from the existing vCenter server to the new one considering the existing server is a 32 bit machine?

If I don't care about historical performance data (and I haven't decided if I do or not yet) do I even need to care about the database?

What are the possible risks to our VM environment (roughly 27 VM's spread over 2 hosts) during the upgrade procedure?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Peter.  

[a_p_]

Can the existing database by migrated from the existing vCenter  server to the new one considering the existing server is a 32 bit  machine?

The procedure on backing up/migrating the database is described in the upgrade document.

If  I don't care about historical performance data (and I haven't decided  if I do or not yet) do I even need to care about the database?

If you don't need/use any vCenter Server based options (e.g. vDS, ...) you can easily start with a new database.

What are the possible risks to our VM environment (roughly 27 VM's spread over 2 hosts) during the upgrade procedure?

Usually there's no risk in connecting the hosts to another vCenter Server instance. The VM's should all stay up and running. Just make sure to disable e.g. HA on the "old" vCenter Server prior to shutting it down.

André

[peter79]

Andre,

Your bieng very helpful.  This is the rough sequence of events I've put together so far.

Build new vCenter VM.

Install vCenter 4.1

Stop databse on "old" vCenter server.

Backup up DB.

Copy DB backup to "new" vCenter server.

Restore DB from backup on "new" vCenter.

Disable HA/DRS on "old" vCenter.

Disconnect hosts.

Power down "old" vCenter

Recreate cluster setup in "new" vCenter and add hosts.

How does it look?

[peter79]

Actually I've just read about the data migration tool bundled with vSphere 4.1

http://blog.vmpros.nl/2010/08/10/vmware-migrate-vcenter-4-0-database-to-new-vcenter-4-1-server/

Looks good.  Has anyone else here used this tool before?

[AnthonyChow]

See if this helps:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/07/04/migrating-your-32-bit-vcenter-server-to-64-bit/

[peter79]

Quick question if I download the vSphere 4 vCenter evaluation ISO and use the data migration tool, pointing it to the eval ISO as the the installation media will the licensing from the old vCenter be restored as well?