Planning an ESX 4.1U1 to ESXI 5.0 upgrade on HP DL 580 G7 servers

[MichaelLeone]

So I am in the process of planing my upgrade from ESX 4.1 U1 to 5.0. And I am planning on doing the

Upgrade vCenter to v5.0 (database is not local, it is SQL 2008, on a different database server)

Upgrade Update Manager to v5.0

Upgrade my vSphere client and Upgrade Manager to v5

Use Upgrade Manager to create and attach a v5.0 baseline, and then remediate that to each of my ESX servers in turn

(I have 6 servers in a cluster, with HA/DRS). This shoulod preserve the IP, DNS, NTP, SNMP, etc settings of the ESX host.

These servers were installed new with 4.1U1, so no worries about /boot being too small. But I am wondering at drivers and agents. Right now, each is running this:

[root@DCTRESX001 ~]# esxupdate query
------------Bulletin ID------------- -----Installed----- -------------------Summary--------------------
ESX410-Update01                      2011-03-09T14:20:10 VMware ESX 4.1 Complete Update 1
hp-nmi-driver-1.2.02                 2011-07-10T08:25:03 HP NMI Sourcing Driver for VMware ESX/ESXi 4.1
hp-classic-mgmt-solution-870.16.1117 2011-07-12T13:50:46 HP SNMP Agents for ESX 4.0
ntx-nx_nic-4.0.598-164009            2011-08-25T11:06:53 nx_nic: net driver for VMware ESX
lpfc820-8.2.1.105.34                 2011-12-17T10:38:24 lpfc820: scsi driver for VMware ESX

So there are 2 HP updates installed, and 2 drivers from VMware - one for the 10G Ethernet cards (which are QLogic cards), and one for the FC HBAs (which are Emulex cards. (the management network NIC  and vmotion NIC are separate Intel cards).

Name    Driver      Link Speed     Duplex  Description
vmnic0  nx_nic      Up   10000Mbps Full  NetXen Incorporated HP NC375i 1G w/NC524SFP 10G Module
vmnic1  nx_nic      Up   10000Mbps Full  NettXen Incorporated HP NC375i 1G w/NC524SFP 10G Module
vmnic4  e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full  Intel Corporation NC364T PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic5  e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full  Intel Corporation NC364T PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic6  e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full  Intel Corporation NC364T PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter
vmnic7  e1000e      Up   1000Mbps  Full  Intel Corporation NC364T PCI Express Quad Port Gigabit Server Adapter

When I update the ESX servers to v5.0, it will recognize the running drivers for the Ethernet and FC HBAs listed above and use the v5 equivalent, right?

But what of the 2 HP entries? I'm assuming they won't get moved over. But will I even need them with v5? I see that there are v5 equivalents available from HP for at least one of them.

I plan on doing each server separately, and waiting at least a couple days, to make sure it all Just Works, before moving to the next upgrade. When all ESX servers are upgraded, I will look into upgrade my datastores (by assigning a brand new one, formatting it as v5, doing a storage migration to it from one of the other datastores (there are 11 in all), and then re-formatting that datastore as v5. And repeating until done.

Thoughts so far? Have I missed anything major?

[Josh26]

MichaelLeone wrote:

So I am in the process of planing my upgrade from ESX 4.1 U1 to 5.0. And I am planning on doing the

But what of the 2 HP entries? I'm assuming they won't get moved over. But will I even need them with v5? I see that there are v5 equivalents available from HP for at least one of them.

Just to clarify, you'd be moving to ESXi 5.0. Are you starting at ESX 4.1 or ESXi 4.1?

There are several HP softwares for ESXi 5.0. You simply check them into Update Manager, and remediate them after your upgrade. Your server will run fine in the meantime without the HP addons - they are each improvements.

For example, the HP CIM providers provide better hardware monitoring.

[MichaelLeone]

> Are you starting at ESX 4.1 or ESXi 4.1?

I currently have a cluster of 6 ESX 4.1 U 1 servers.

>There are several HP softwares for ESXi 5.0. You simply check them into Update Manager, and remediate them after your upgrade. Your server will run fine in the meantime without the HP addons - they are each improvements.

For example, the HP CIM providers provide better hardware monitoring.

Huh. Didn't know I could put them into Update Manager ... thanks!

So the rest of the plan seems OK? And the upgrade will keep all current settings, and install the same drivers as what are currently loaded?

(I ask that, because there are apparently 2 kinds of drivers for the 10G NICs I am running, one from QLogic called "vlc-nic" and one from VMware, called "nx-nic". We use the VMware ones, because our cards are HP branded cards made by QLogic, and not actual QLogic cards)

[Josh26]

Hi,

Yep, we recommend the "HP ESXi 5.0 bundle", which provides hardware monitoring, HP NMI Source (I still don't understand what this does) and the HP ilO configuration tool, all of which we have just pushed into Update Manager.