ESX 4 to ESXi 5

[pan1268]

Hi,

I have  ESX 4.0 update 4 hosts in cluster having 8 esx hosts; I need to upgrade all the hosts to ESXi 5.0 update 1(vCenter is already upgraded to 5.0 update 1). Just wanted to confirm if the approach mentioned below is ok to proceed :

1) Empty one of the ESX 4 hosts by vMotion migrating all the VMs to other ESX hosts in cluster.
2) Remove the ESX hosts from the vCenter and dvSwitch.
3) Rebuild it with ESXi 5.0 update 1
4) Add the ESXi 5.0 hosts to the cluster
5) Migrate back the  VMs to new ESXi 5.0 hosts and upgrade VM hardware and tools.

Will follow this procedure for all the ESX hosts in the cluster untill all ESX hosts upgraded to the ESXi 5.0 update 1.

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers

[a_p_]

Sounds ok to me. Just some thoughts.

• Ensure the hardware is supported for ESXi 5.0
• Consider to do a firmware upgrade on the hosts before installing ESXi 5
• Personally I'd upgrade VMware Tools and the HW version after upgrading all of the hosts.

André

[NuclearFisher1]

Looks good.

But:

1. Why not to upgrade to 5.0u2 since it's already here. vCenter first, of course.

2. I would upgrade 'VMware hardware' when the whole farm has successfuly moved to 5.0.