Mixed version upgrade best practices

[ewilts]

We have an existing ESX 4.0 cluster spread across 2 blade enclosures.  We're adding a 3rd enclosure with blades that require 4.1 so we're installing ESXi 4.1U1 on them.

What's the safest way to move specific guests to the new blades to burn them in?  If we simply add them to the cluster, they become fair game for all guests.  4.1 gives us host affinity but that doesn't help us with the existing 4.0 hosts.

The one thing we can't afford is to have critical production guests accidentally starting on the new blades since the enclosure, blades, and network switches are all new.  We do want the same storage presented to the old and new guests so we're not having to do svMotions.

Opinions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

   .../Ed

[DSTAVERT]

One critical piece here is that you will need to upgrade vCenter to 4.1 (requires a 64bit OS) before the new hosts can be added to the cluster. The best advice is to follow the upgrade guide.

[DSTAVERT]

http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r41/vsp_41_upgrade_guide.pdf

[Rubeck]

I would create a new cluster containing the new ESXi 4.1 hosts. Setup identical datastore and portgroups as you existing 4.0 cluster has.

If you existing cluster runs with an EVC baseline, configure the new cluster with an identical one...

This way nothing will run on your new ESXi hosts unless you specifically choose to... and with identical EVC settings you can even manually vMotion between the two... if not, power some VMs down and migrate which will trigger a simple unregister /register VM if sharing datastores.

Burn the new hosts in.. When happy merge all hosts into one cluster..

Just make sure your vCenter is running 4.1 U1 before adding them into your inventory..

/Rubeck

[ewilts]

Thanks Rubeck.  We had already upgraded vCenter to 4.1U1 so we're good to go there.

We migrated a test host this morning to the new cluster.

We still need to figure out why Update Manager won't scan the new hosts but that's a different problem...

Thanks again,

   .../Ed