Upgrade from 4.0 to 5.0 with hardware replacement

[vincentc]

Hi

I am in the planning stage at the moment.

We are currently using 3 hosts with V4.0, a pysical Windows server running Windows 2003 32bits for Vcenter 4.0.

The hosts are attached to a SAN via fiber

We are replacing the 3 hosts, and the new SAN will be Isci.

I would like to take this opportunity to upgrade our environment to V5.0

The new hosts will not be able to see the current FC SAN, and I am assuming we should be able to attach to the Iscsi San from the current hosts, to be able to perform Vstorage motion (I have Enterprise licenses and the new hosts are AMD family CPU as well)

I guess the first steps, before putting the new hardware would be to replace Vcenter 4.0 (which cannot be upgraded) with Vcenter 5.0 which can control both ESX4.0 and ESXi5.0.

This time, I am planning the virtualise Vcenter.

Question 1: Is seems easier/better to create a new Vcenter instead of upgrading/migrating the existing one. Would you agree?

Question 2: In that case, would you recommend to use the new Vcenter Appliance? At the moment I have about 60 VM. Will it handle it?

Question 3: what is exacly the procedure to move hosts from one Vcenter to another one? Is it just a matter of moving them off the cluster, and then deleting them from Vcenter, before adding them to the new one? Anything that I need to look at? No down time?

When the new hardware is installed and configured, the new hosts running V5.0  should then be available in Vcenter v5.0 and I should be able to Vstorage the VM with no down time? Is it alright?

The last step will be to update each VM to V5.0 and decomission the 'old' hardware.

Let me know if I am missing anything, or if you would proceed differently? Your advises will be welcome

Thanks

[nkrishnan]

> Question 1: Is seems easier/better to create a new Vcenter instead of upgrading/migrating the existing one. Would you agree?

== 3 hosts with minimal configuration, can go for install of vCenter server, if you have several settings that need to configured then it is good to do migration.

before doing migration make sure that compatiblity with existing database.

Question 2: In that case, would you recommend to use the new Vcenter Appliance? At the moment I have about 60 VM. Will it handle it?

== New vCenter Appliance has many limitation, and it doesn’t support plugins, most of the configurations are not supported through it. it is better to go with Windows vCenter server.

Question 3: what is exacly the procedure to move hosts from one Vcenter to another one? Is it just a matter of moving them off the cluster, and then deleting them from Vcenter, before adding them to the new one? Anything that I need to look at? No down time?

== install new vCenter server and you can connect your host to new VCenter server. It ask for esx host details and login credentials

When the new hardware is installed and configured, the new hosts running V5.0  should then be available in Vcenter v5.0 and I should be able to Vstorage the VM with no down time? Is it alright?

== Yes, to upgrade or while migrating the ESX from one vCenter server to another one will not cause VM downtime.

[arturka]

Hi

Question 1: Is seems easier/better to create a new Vcenter instead of upgrading/migrating the existing one. Would you agree?

You don't have a choice 🙂 Starts from vSphere 4.1 you need to have 64 bit OS

http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=200386...

Question 2: In that case, would you recommend to use the new Vcenter Appliance? At the moment I have about 60 VM. Will it handle it?

I never work with that thing but is has less features than standard vCetner installed on Windows OS, take have a look on that thing

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/2011/08/10/vcenter-appliance/

Question 3: what is exacly the procedure to move hosts from one Vcenter to another one? Is it just a matter of moving them off the cluster, and then deleting them from Vcenter, before adding them to the new one? Anything that I need to look at? No down time?

Well, if you do migration with correct tolls you don't have connect servers to new vCenter, they will be already connected, you have to use datamigration tool which is a part of vCenter ISO. That tool will do backup of vCenter settings on old vCenter and restore on new one.

Read documentation before you start upgrade, there are a lot of prerequisites

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-50/index.jsp?topic=/com.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc_50/GUID-18B7B4BB-C...

When the new hardware is installed and configured, the new hosts running V5.0  should then be available in Vcenter v5.0 and I should be able to Vstorage the VM with no down time? Is it alright?

yes, when you add new hosts to new vCenter  (old hosts need access to new iSCSI storage) you can do sMotion between old and new storage and later vMotion to new Hosts

Cheers
Artur

Please, don't forget the awarding points for "helpful" and/or "correct" answers.

[vincentc]

Thanks Guys

OK, I will not use the appliance as advised, and will do more reading about the Vcenter migration.

Cheers