4.1 to 5.5 upgrade

[ukdaz]

Hi I wonder if so done could give me advice in the following

i have a cluster has 3 Hosts running Enterprise Plus on 4.1 with DVS.

I want to migrate(fresh install maybe) the same hosts to 5.5 with Standard Switches while keeping the VM’s running and not changing mac addresses or anything like that.

A new standalone 5.5 VC appliance has been setup.

Would I need to migrate the hosts onto Standard switches then add them to the new vc then rebuild them one by one into 5.5?  Could 4.1 and 5.5 coexist for a very short (2 days) time?

many thanks in advance

Daz

[vfk]

Hi, yes, you can have a mixed cluster, see here Mixing ESX/ESXi Versions in an HA/DRS Cluster | VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

Also, is there any reason you're moving from vDS to standard vSwitch?  Majority of new features are getting built into vDS.

[ukdaz]

Vfk

thanks for for the prompt reply. I'm downgrading from enterprise plus to essentials plus on that cluster and moving the licenses to a new cluster of hardware we're getting soon. Mucho cores/ram and all that.

MY process would be:-

1. Migrate 1 physical nic from each vds onto std switch On each host. Add vm's to this.
2. Evacuate 1 host. Firmware update and remove dual quad nics and replace with dual 10gb nics.
3. add new host onto new 5.5 vcenter
4. migrate other 4.1 hosts onto this.
5. repeat step 2 on host 2, then 1 while using existing vmotion network.
6. when all done update vmfs volumes etc.

Does that make sense?

Many thanks in advance.

Daz

[vfk]

Daz, you got under control Sir.  I would migrate everything to vCenter 5.5 first before reconfiguring the vSwitches and rebuilding the hosts.  Good luck.

[ukdaz]

Thx again vfk.

Didn't realise I could migrate hosts with 4.1 vds onto a new 5.5 vcenter.

will see if there's a process to follow.

Daz

[vfk]

You are right, vDS requires vCenter, I would first move to standard vSwitch and then move the cluster to vCenter 5.5. After that start the upgrade process.

Here is the VMware documented upgrade path

VMware KB: Methods for upgrading to ESXi 5.5

VMware KB: Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5 best practices