Upgrade Distributed Virtual Switch 5.1

[AnnamariaCESI]

  Hi all,

We have a vmware vsphere Cluster with 7 hosts ESXi v 5.1 838463

We have upgrade form version ESXi 5.0 to ESXi 5.1 and vCenter Server from version 5.0 to version 5.1 on september 2012.

Now i have noticed that ( just a little late..;-) )  all the Distributed Virtual Switches (we have 2 DVS) need upgrade.  In fact Version of DVS result to be 5.0.

(i saw it in vSphere Client connected to vCenter Server - Networking).

I didn't expect this behaviour, is DVS upgrade  independent from Host and/or vcenter server upgrade?

It's possible upgrade DVS during normal activity of infrastructure?

Thanks in advance

Anna

[aravinds3107]

vDS can be upgraded without any downtime. Before you upgrade make sure all the host are compatiable with vDS version and then you can do it online

Check Upgrade a vSphere Distributed Switch to a Newer Version with the vSphere Web Client

[TomHowarth · Accepted solution]

Think about this situation,

remember a dVS is a spanned virtual switch across all hosts, if the dVS was automatically upgraded to the new version, and there were incompatibilities or new features that were unavailable in the downstream switch you could run the risk of a network outage.

in my opinion VMware rightly made this a post phyiscal upgrade task,

[AnnamariaCESI]

Thanks to all for answers that have clearified to me the question.

Annamaria