Options for my specific upgrade?

[abaack]

Ok, we currently have three ESX 3.5 hosts that are regular HP DL385s. Another DL385 is being used as a vCenter 2.5 system. Around 20 or so VMs spread across the three.

We just purchased our first blade chassis and are going to move all of our ESX hosts onto 4 BL480 (blades). What is the best way to approach this? I was also considering virtualizing our vCenter since I've heard a lot of people are doing it now and for DR purposes it's nice.

If I don't mind losing the 'stats' from the old vCenter can I setup a new VM and install vSphere Center on it and then attach all of the existing ESX hosts to it without worrying about messing with the 2.5 vCenter?

Thanks.

[weinstein5 · Accepted solution]

If you do not mind losing your stats then what you describe is a perfect way to migrate onto new hardware as well as move to vSphere - do not know if you have seen this document - http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere4/r40/vsp_40_upgrade_guide.pdf

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[Troy_Clavell]

You first have to upgrade your vCenter instance to 4. But if you have an external DB, then you can just upgrade using existing DB and keep all your historical and performance data.

My concern is moving from an AMD environment to an Intel. You may have issues with vmotion because of the CPUID bits of your guests from the Intel Servers.

[abaack]

Edit: Whoops... sorry. The regular servers are DL380s (intel dual-quad) so everything is Intel here.

Also, I've read some differing posts here and there, but the recommended initial setup for blades?

Power - OS Control ON

Hyperthreading - ON

?

Thanks.

[weinstein5]

Double check - I thought HP model number if ended in a 5 meant AMD - if it is an AMD to Intel move you will need to cold migrate your VMs to the new hardware -

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[abaack]

How would I get the VMs over to the new blades? Can I:

- Create four new blade vSphere hosts

- Install vCenter 4 onto one of the blades

- Shutdown vCenter 2.5 server

- Join all ESX 3.5 and 4 hosts to the vCenter 4 VM

- vMotion all VMs off onto the ESX 4 hosts

- Shutdown 3.5 hosts

Any problems with this? Do you upgrade the VM Tools on the VMs last after everything else has been upgraded?

[Troy_Clavell]

Don't hyperthread unless they are Nehalem processors. Also, is this shared storage? If so, I would leave both old and new ESX Hosts on-line and just do a vmotion of the guests off the old host onto the new? With that, you will need to leave your license server in tact for the 3.5 hosts.

Or you can shutdown all the guests and browse the datastores and add to inventory.

[weinstein5]

No problems with what you propose as long as the physical CPUs are compatible to support vmotion and yes upgrading the VMs virtual hardware and VMware tools is done last -

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[abaack]

I believe they're Xeon X5550 procs.

[Troy_Clavell]

you are not using nehalem based processors then, so you can't hyperthread anyway.

[abaack]

Really? If I go in the blade bios (System Options - Processor Options - Intel Hyperthreading Options) is turned On?

Also, we have three other Blades with E5540s we're installing Windows on and it shows up with 16 CPUs on a Server 2003 box.

Am I misssing something?

[Troy_Clavell]

my apologies, I thought you wrote 54xx series. So, yes 55xx is the nehalem series and you definatly should hyperthread.

[DSTAVERT]

Also, we have three other Blades with E5540s we're installing Windows on and it shows up with 16 CPUs on a Server 2003 box.

In an ESX(i) environment don't configure as though you have 16 cores available. Hyperthreading is not the same as a processor core. Somewhere in the forums is a post recommending that you look at 2 quad cores with hyperthreading as having no more than 9 cores.

Edited to show as cores rather than vCPUs

Message was edited by: DSTAVERT

[weinstein5]

Are you saying the forum thread you are quoting suggests that a Nehalem dual quad core with HT enabled can only support 9 vCPUs? From what I know and have expereinced that is incorrect - firs off - you should treat HT as you would treat a core - so a dual quad core nehalem with HT enabled should be able to support 48-64 vcpus

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[DSTAVERT]

Sorry I meant to say treat is as having 9 cores. I believe it was a post by Jim Mattson. I'll see if I can find the reference.