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Cbaur88
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Upgrade ESXi 5.0 Host w/ vCenter on it

Hi folks, forgive me if this is the wrong place. Finally getting around to updating and patching my three ESXi 5.0 hosts with update manager. Pretty easily I was able to update two of my hosts with update managers to a newer build, however little stumped on what to do with the host that is hosting my vCenter server on it? We have VMware essentials so we do not have Vmotion to utilize. Is there an easy way to update this host without cloning vCenter and moving to another host to update? Any tips or tricks or info to point me in the right directions would be greatly appreciated. I thank you in advance for your time and help!

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weinstein5
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I assume your vCenter is on shared storage - connecting to the host with your vCenter VM power down the vm and remove it from the hosts inventory - go to one of the hosts that was already updated and add the vm to the inventory and start it up - and now you will be ready to use update manager to update the remaining host -

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weinstein5
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I assume your vCenter is on shared storage - connecting to the host with your vCenter VM power down the vm and remove it from the hosts inventory - go to one of the hosts that was already updated and add the vm to the inventory and start it up - and now you will be ready to use update manager to update the remaining host -

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Cbaur88
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Thanks Weinstein, fairly new to VMware since starting this new position. Never thought of that and that would be a great solution however looks like VCenter is on LocalDisks (WTF). Would cloning VCenter server and moving it to shared storage be the solution. Kinda kill two birds with one stone as I'd be able to get it off local disks and I can use your above solution going forward for future updates?

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weinstein5
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The only other option you have is to manually upgrade the ESXi host - this KB will helphttp://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=203275...

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Cbaur88
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Do you think my cloning solution will work ok? Thanks!

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weinstein5
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It would work but I think following the KB would be simpler -

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Cbaur88
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Thanks so much for your help and replies, I greatly appreciate it. Take care!

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TedH256
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weinstein5 wrote:

The only other option you have is to manually upgrade the ESXi host - this KB will helphttp://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=203275...

this link is for upgrading to 5.1 - I'm not sure the process of identifying and applying the correct 5.0 update patches manually, is described there?

Really - I think the easiest way would be to do the clone - then it is done, and the vcenter is on shared storage, and you don't have to fight it anymore. Or, you could do a v2v I think also using converter ...