How to Upgrade ESX 3.5 to ESX 4.0

[ubersol]

Hi All,

I am sorry if this question has been asked before but I am really confused on upgrade methods mentioned in Upgrade guide and I need some guidance how to do this in best way.

We are planning to upgrade our ESX 3.5 Servers to ESX 4.0. We have two servers clustered for HA. The new upgrade will not be within the same servers but it will be for the new two supported servers we are getting. Our guests are sitting on SAN.

I understand that I can install the new ESX 4.0 server to these new servers and I can migrate the guests 3.5 to 4.0. Since this update is not in place server update, using vmotion should take care of the guests? Am I correct on this one? If I use Vmotion then will the guests be automatically updated or do I need to do extra procedures?

Here is what I am thinking to do:

1) Create a backup of the database

2) Copy the SSL folder into the destinantion

3) Install vCenter Server in the new server.

4) Create a 32 bit DSN on 64 bit OS (I am not clear why I am doing this, both older and newer servers are 64 bit....)

5) Vmotion Guests?????

Any guidance would be deeply appreciated. Am I on the right Track?

Is there any clear step by step how-to or tutorial for this?

Thank you all very much..

Sincerly..

Dennis

[DSTAVERT]

I would follow the Upgrade Guide. Don't upgrade vmware tools or hardware levels until you are confident that everything is working as it should. Neither are critical to the operation of the VM's. Get as much testing with the new hardware as you can before you go live.

[ubersol]

So do I need to use vMotion to get my vm's to the new hardware and ESX 4.0 from ESX 3.5? or Should I use update manager for this task?

I don't have a lot of VMs but the ones I have are production and critical. So the first thing I should do is to install Vspehere on the new hardware and use vmotion to get my vms into the new hardware then?

Thanks...

[DSTAVERT]

vMotion will not change the virtual hardware version or vmware tools version. You do NOT want to change hardware version or tools version until you are satisfied everything is working well. You would not be able to move things back to 3.5 if anything went wrong with your move. Take your time. Don't rush through anything.

[ubersol]

Thanks very much for your answers but I am still not clear

Could you please elaborate a little more? I understand not rushing into things and doing lots of testing but I am confused with upgrade guide on how to do things when it comes to vms.

Simply put, page 22 of upgrade guide talks about how to upgrade vCenter Server on a new machine, and then provides a link for "Upgrading to vCenter Server on a Different Machine and keeping the existing database" in the following page. There, we are introduced How to backup,detach/attach the databases and of course finally upgrading vCenter.

But there is no mention of VMs at this point. If I have a "test" vm on 3.5, is it actually a matter of doing a Vmotion to esx 4.0 to use my vms in 4.0? What are the things I should be concerned about with my vms? I am only aware of doing a vmotion but is there any other or better method doing this?

Thanks again,

Kind Regards,

D.

[DSTAVERT]

Once the new vCenter server is available you would add your 3.5 hosts and your 4 hosts. You can then vmotion the VMs from the 3.5 hosts to the 4 hosts.

[ubersol]

Again thanks very much for your answer.

On a related subject I have another question, I am not sure If I need to start another thread for this but it is about updating.

I have inherited the environment I am going to be doing the update. From the upgrade doc, it mentions that MSDE database is no longer supported by vCenter Server. I am not sure which database is installed in my environment but how do I check what database is installed.

I looked at regedit HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-SOFTWARE-VMWARE INC-VMWARE VirtualCenter-DB, and I saw on the right hand side 1 corresponds to VMware Virtual Center and 4 corresponds to SQL Native Client. Is this the unsupported MSDE database for vSphere 4?

Do I even need to worry about this database since I am actually going to install esx 4.0 on a new hardware? or do I still need to point this database to esx 4.0?

I am sorry if this question here is inappropriate or not , but if it is I can start a new thread. I am a newbie so all I have been doing is a lot of research.

Thanks again.

Kind Regards.

D.

[DSTAVERT]

The current database has the current configuration, permissions, historical data etc. Unless you don't want anything from the previous install you need to back up the old sql database and restore to the new one. Check the current installed software for SQL Express 2005.

Move to a new Server

[ubersol]

The link you provided does not show the doc, what is the name of the guide?

[DSTAVERT]

I fixed the link