Compatibility Enhanced Linked Mode (PSC 6.5/ vCenter 6.0)

[BrianMathis]

Hi all,

I'm in the process of planning an upgrade to vSphere 6.5 U1 on a customer site.

Today I have installed 2 external Platform Services Controller (Load balanced) and 3 vCenter in Enhanced Linked Mode.

For compatibilty reasons I will have to leave 1 vCenter on 6.0 U3 because the hardware of the ESXi hosts are not on the HCL for ESXi 6.5 (HPE Proliant DL 380G7/BL460 G7).

Question:

1. Will vCenter 6.0 U3 and vCenter 6.5 U1 work together in Enhanced Linked Mode (PSC 6.5)?

2. Is this supported by VMware?

Thanks for your feedback.

[chin2reddy]

Would recommend upgrading all vCenters to 6.5 and leave the hosts on 6 until you get HCL compatible hardware. vCenter 6.5 can still manage ESXi hosts running 6.

[BrianMathis]

I forgot to mention that I can't update the vCenter because it hosts >70 ESXi 5.1 hosts which shall not be touched for at least another 2 years.

As vCenter 6.5 only supports hosts from ESXi 5.5 and newer I'm stuck with vCenter 6.0 for those hosts.

[chin2reddy]

Got you. If you are going to not touch those hosts for another two years, its better to manage that vcenter separately instead of including that in the 6.5 (PSC + VC) because that may cause issues when you have to do future upgrades on 6.5 and most importantly there is no official document that says a mixed versions of vCenter can exist in a single PSC domain. Please check with VMware Support for more recommendations.