How do i upgrade our ESXi hosts and Vcenter

duncanwarrender · ‎10-03-2014

Hi All,

I've just started my first job straight out of college and I've been tasked with upgrading our vmware machines. I have installed vcenter and configured esxi hosts from scratch but never upgraded anything, I was wondering if somebody could give me some advice on how to do so. How does the licensing work? How do i find out what license i have? I know that we are running 5.1 on esxi hosts and vcenter, i want to upgrade them to 5.5, does that mean the hosts get upgraded as well as vcenter?

Thanks!

a_p_ · ‎10-03-2014

The techincal part is pretty straight forward,. However, prior to starting the upgrade you need to check whether all involved components (e.g. hardware/firmware, plug-ins, add-ons, 3-rd party backup applications, ...) are supported with the new version (see VMware Compatibility Guide). Depending on the installed VMware applications/components you may want to take a look for the proper order in which you need to upgrade them, see VMware KB: Update sequence for vSphere 5.5 and its compatible VMware products as well as VMware Product Interoperability Matrix

Licenses are provided for major versions, so if you already run vSphere 5.1 you will not need to get new license keys. That said, with active SnS (Support and Subscription) you can always up- and/or downgrade licenses free of charge if required.

André

vfk · ‎10-03-2014

After you have completed the pre-check as Andre pointed out...here is a little video for the actual upgrade process of vcenter...The Upgrade Process from vCenter 5.1 to 5.5 - YouTube

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bhatti · ‎10-06-2014

Refer kb.vmware.com/kb/2053130 for vcenter upgrade

kb.vmware.com/kb/2058352 for ESXi upgrade

hapip87 · ‎10-07-2014

regarding the licensing if you are applying for an upgrade your latest license key should be listed in you my.vmware.com portal

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kiranchavan30 · ‎10-07-2014

Since - you already running vSphere 5.1 , no need to check the license compatibility on VMware portal - 5.1 licenses are compatible with 5.5. Your up-gradation plan is completely depends based on your existing configuration. Kindly go through the up-gradation documents available on VMware site to understand the upgrade process.