Advice needed - Upgrading mulitple vCenters to 5.5

[VMMikeC]

Hi,

Currently running two instances of vCenter 5.0 U2  in the same location (one for server environment, and the other for a View environment), both have their databases on the same remote SQL Server (2008R2).

In previous versions, upgrading was not much of an issue but I know things are much different now since the introduction of 5.1 with SSO.

Any suggestions on upgrading this type of environment? Do I need 3 servers now, as in 2 vcenter servers and 1 SSO server? Will I need multiple SQL Servers?

Been sifting through the documentation but still not 100% clear

[raog]

SSO can be installed on the same server as VC.. you wont need a separate machine for it.

This KB also might be helpful:

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=205233...

Regards

Girish

[vJJSosa]

Hi, is not mandatory to have multiple servers, but if you want to have a single SSO instance  (or web server too) for multiple vCenters it is possible. Maybe this  Duncan blog's helps you: http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2013/06/26/vcenter-single-sign-on-aka-sso-what-do-i-recommend/

Regards

[Darcos1]

We have the same setup and are planning to upgrade both sites that are linked with SRM 5.5 upgrade also.  We are going to run everything on the same vCenter server box.   We have a open case for an issue right now with SSO and Linked mode not working.  Stay tuned. 

[smitchuson]

I have a pretty similar setup one vCenter for Servers and vCenter for View, they also both point to the same DB server but I didn't have any problem upgrading them from 5.0 to 5.5 and just installing SSO alongside the vCenter upgrades (still have the server as opposed to switching to the appliance) and they both point back to the same DB as before.  

I did decide not to link them together in SSO though for security reasons and organization of our people (the View group is different from the server group) so it just kept things clean for both groups to see what they were used to seeing.

[VMMikeC]

JJSosa - thanks for the link, I'll check it out.

Darcos - cool, good to know. I'm not using linked-mode currently, and won't after upgrade, most likely.

smitchuson - your environment is very similar to mine then. So to clarify, in your situation, you have two instances of SSO? One for each server? I thought I looked at that when 5.1 came out and it was not possible due to the tables that were created for sso. Maybe I was wrong, or maybe it was fixed in 5.5? Sounds like the way I want to go though.

[smitchuson]

We went straight from 5.0 to 5.5 so I didn't have to do the table creation scripts required in a 5.1 install.  Or my install may go bad soon. 

[raog]

5.5 doesn't need a DB so the table creation steps are not required.

Regards

Girish

[VMMikeC]

That's great to know!

So I will continue with the plan of two basic vcenter installs, which will have 2 instances of SSO. Anything else that I need to watch out for?