Upgrade and migration from 3.5.0upd0 to 4.0upd1 and iSCSI shared storage

[ADigital]

Hi people,

I've got 2 ESX Hosts: Alpha and Beta. Both of them are connected to a iSCSI disk cabin with some shared storages created (all VMFS3 v3.31). And both had ESX 3.5.0 update0

I migrated all VMs running in the Alpha Host to the shared storages and made the Beta Host to run them (cold clones or simply reallocate files). Then I rebuilded Alpha from scratch and I installed vSphere 4.0 into it. I also created in its little local storage a new VM with vCenter4 inside. That worked good.

Then I had to migrate Beta and its VMs, too. First I tried to manage the Host with vCenter4, but it's not backward compatible.

So I'm going to use the Host Update Utility to Upgrade Beta as I saw in a video tutorial, but my doubts are...

• Option 1:

Turn off all VMs managed in Beta Host.

Configure iSCSI client in Alpha, add the shared storages from the cabin and try to manage the previously turned-off VMs. This reduces downgrade time.

Upgrade Vmware Tools in those VMs (v4 to v7 VM type). Reboots required.

Upgrade Beta host (with no VMs in it, and the iSCSI cable disconnected) to vSphere4.

Connect and configure iSCSI client in Beta.

Manage Beta Host with the new vCenter4.

Configure vMotion, DRS etc... in both Hosts.

• Option 2:

Turn off all VMs managed in Beta Host.

Upgrade Beta host (with no VMs in it, and the iSCSI cable disconnected) to vSphere4. Downgrade time increased.

Connect and configure iSCSI client in Beta.

Upgrade Vmware Tools in those VMs (v4 to v7 VM type). Reboots required.

Manage Beta Host with the new vCenter4.

Configure vMotion, DRS etc... in both Hosts.

Which option is best? Maybe is it possible to apply a third one? What do you think?

Thanks in advance.

[AndreTheGiant]

You can use option 1

Upgrade Vmware Tools in those VMs (v4 to v7 VM type). Reboots required.

There are 2 upgrade:

- first VMware Tools (reboot is needed), recomended

- then upgrade to virtual hardware to v7 (another reboot is required), useful (and needed for some new feature).

I suggest to first update only VMware Tools, be sure that both ESX works fine with vSphere and then upgrade also to v7.

Andre

[ADigital]

Thanks for your answer. One more question...

Would be possible to run v4-vHardware-VMs in a vSphere4 ESX host (Alpha in this case) without losing performance? I did that with a test VM and seemed to work well, but there are some more that are in production.

I mean, while I do the migration, I would like to make possible a backtrack if there were problems, and re-migrate VMs to their original Beta 3.5.0upd0 host. That wouldn't be possible if their vHardware is upgraded to v7.

Caution is my upper priority, this upgrading and migration task is very delicate to me.

Thanks again.

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

without losing performance?

Yes. VM with v4 works fine.

The only problem is that you loose some new features, like FT and new drivers.

Note also that VMware Standalone Converter 4.x can convert also between v4 and v7 and viceversa.

Andre

[ADigital]

All worked perfectly. Thank you very much