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Jason1355
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My Migration Plan

I've inherited a vcenter 4.1 environment with 6 esxi hosts.  The vcenter server resides on a physical 2008 R2 server running a 2005 SQL express db on the same box.  I've got around 80 VMS, 65ish or so are production servers.  With this many vms and hosts I'm worried the current express db and even the 2008 express bundle on an upgrade are going to start having problems.  We will be adding a few more hosts in the near future for some projects as well.  What I would like to do is build a SQL 2008R2 server to house the database on a separate VM and build a new vcenter 5.1 server on a separate vm.  This vm would contain the SSO and its default db, the inventory server and the vcenter server (attached to the new SQL 2008R2 server).  I know I can take backups of the dbs on the existing vcenter and import the data to the new sql server as I've already done that successfully in testing.  I've successfully installed SSO and Inventory on a new vm, but I get a certificate error that says my certs don't exist even though they do.  it dawned on me that the certs copied over from the existing vcenter server are built with the name of the existing vcenter server and I'm trying to do a test install on a server by another name.  So my plan is this:

1. Shutdown vcenter server service

2. Take all my necessary db backups, vcdb, umdb, adam, and certs, and move them to a network share

3. Import my dbs on the sql server

4. power down the existing vcenter server

5. remote to my new vcenter vm and rename it to the old vcenter name and give the old vcenter's IP address

6. copy the certs to the proper location

7. start the install of vcenter 5.1 and install sso, inventory, and vcenter on the new vm and point vcenter to the new sql server.

8. once working I'd enable HA for the new vcenter VM and the sql server.

Will this plan even work or am I going about this the wrong way or should I just do the in place upgrade?  What I don't want is obviously things to go BOOM!  This is a county hospital environment.

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Jason1355
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Soooo that whole thing didn't work so plan B which was much easier.  I built a vm for sso and its db (used the bundled sql for ssodb), inventory service, and vcenter server, another vm for vcenter db (used full sql 2008r2), and a 3rd vm for update manager and its db (full sql 2008r2).  Installed 5.1 fresh on those vms which reside on the current 4.1 hosts.  remoted in to the new vcenter server vm, opened the client and added the hosts to the new vcenter.  This disconnected the hosts from the 4.1 physical vcenter server and now all my vms are running under vcenter server 5.1.  Now i'm upgrading the esxi hosts to 5.1.  Using this method I didn't have to worry about importing and converting any databases with the old data.  When the 4.1 hosts were connected to the new vcenter 5.1 server the new database was populated with fresh information.  So in short I've gone from a physical 4.1 server where everything was on one server, to a fully vm'd vcserver environment with components separated amongst 3 servers. No errors and zero downtime for my users done during prime business hours.  We have about 80 vms on this setup 65ish or so are production servers.

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weinstein5
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Welcome to the Community - Sounds reasonable - your might also want to look at VMware Upgrade Guide - http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-51/topic/com.vmware.ICbase/PDF/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-511-upgrad...

I have also moved your question to the Upgrade Forum

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lonicker
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Hello,

Your plan looks solid to me. I have always preferred to go with a new vCenter server instead of upgrading. The biggest concern would be the databases but since you have already tested them it should be a smooth transition. Worst case you have the old server to resort back to.

Jason1355
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Having the original unchanged to go back to is exactly what I was thinking.

Jason1355
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Soooo that whole thing didn't work so plan B which was much easier.  I built a vm for sso and its db (used the bundled sql for ssodb), inventory service, and vcenter server, another vm for vcenter db (used full sql 2008r2), and a 3rd vm for update manager and its db (full sql 2008r2).  Installed 5.1 fresh on those vms which reside on the current 4.1 hosts.  remoted in to the new vcenter server vm, opened the client and added the hosts to the new vcenter.  This disconnected the hosts from the 4.1 physical vcenter server and now all my vms are running under vcenter server 5.1.  Now i'm upgrading the esxi hosts to 5.1.  Using this method I didn't have to worry about importing and converting any databases with the old data.  When the 4.1 hosts were connected to the new vcenter 5.1 server the new database was populated with fresh information.  So in short I've gone from a physical 4.1 server where everything was on one server, to a fully vm'd vcserver environment with components separated amongst 3 servers. No errors and zero downtime for my users done during prime business hours.  We have about 80 vms on this setup 65ish or so are production servers.

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