Joining ESX4 host into existing VI3/ESX3 farm ... also planning to Upgrade

[jcck20007]

Hi All:

I recently built a new ESX4 update1 vSphere host and was thinking about joining it to our existing VI3/ESX3 farm ... currently we have 13-15 ESX3 host with VC2.5 ... I was thinking about installing vCenter server 4 on this new host, then join to the existing farm ... use the new vCenter as a staging place for its Update Manager to upgrade the rest of the ESX3 hosts..

we have a HP FC SAN running MSA30, which uses simple ACU utility to manage ... do we need to setup special zoning to make sure the existing production data does not get erased ? ... can i simply connect up the FC HBA into the existing FC switch ?

whats the best and safest way to make sure the new host does not destory the data store of the existing ESX3 farm ?

Also do you think this new host is better off to be ESX4 or update the existing vCenter 2.5 then run the Update Manager from there ?

Thanks

JT

[weinstein5]

First off you will not be able to add an ESX 4 hosts to a farm managed by VC 2.5 - you will have to upgrade your existing vcenter server or build a vcenter 4 server -

Since vSphere and VI-3 use the same VMFS file system you do not need to worry about destroying your existing VMFS datastores -

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[AndreTheGiant]

whats the best and safest way to make sure the new host does not destory the data store of the existing ESX3 farm ?

The best way is always add the shared storage later.

Also do you think this new host is better off to be ESX4 or update the existing vCenter 2.5 then run the Update Manager from there ?

As written before you have to update vCenter to 4.0 in order to manage a ESX 4.0.

Or you can downgrade your license to ESX 3.5 and then simple add to your environment.

Andre

[jcck20007]

Since vSphere and VI-3 use the same VMFS file system you do not need to worry about destroying your existing VMFS datastores -

so given that i have to do a in place upgrade of the vCenter server 2.5 to vCenter 4 ... then i can manage both ESX3 and ESX4 from vCenter

then i can always connect that ESX4 server into the existing data store by simply plug in the FC HBA to the switches that are used by the existing ESX3 hosts.. then do a re-scan storage on the ESX4 host ?

not sure if this happen in the right order

thanks

[AndreTheGiant]

The order is right.

To see the all the upgrade steps see also:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/upgrade.html

Andre