Upgrade from 5.5U2 to 6.5U1

[liontaur]

We've got three 5.5U2 hosts in total, two of them are in a HA cluster (with no DRS) and the third is in case the cluster dies. The cluster is connected to one Nimble SAN and the third host is connected to a separate Nimble SAN. There's no VMs running on the third host. There's one vCenter 5.5 server VM that is hosted in the cluster and it has all three hosts in it. What we'd like to do is do a fresh install of 6.5U1 to all three hosts and create a new vCenter 6.5U1 server appliance.

I'm guessing that we'd:

1. Move all the VMs over to one of the HA hosts and disable HA.

2. Remove the now-empty host from vCenter.

3. Install 6.5 on the now-empty host.

4. install the vCenter 6.5 appliance on the now-empty host

5. Add all three hosts to the new vCenter 6.5 appliance.

6. Power down the vCenter 5.5 server.

7. Re-enable HA on the new vCenter 6.5 appliance.

8. Move all the VMs over to the 6.5 HA host and disable HA again.

9. Install 6.5 on the second host.

10. Add the second host to vCenter.

11. Re-enable HA between both 6.5 hosts.

12. Install 6.5 on the third host.

13. Add the third host to vCenter.

14. Delete the old vCenter 5.5 VM

Sound about right?

Thanks for your suggestions,

Mark

[daphnissov · Accepted solution]

What you're proposing here is a "swing"-style migration as opposed to an in-place upgrade. I wrote a blog specifically addressing this scenario which I'd recommend you first read to fully understand the implications and the motions involved. You can see that here:  Upgrading vSphere through migration

Second, I don't quite understand why you'd have a third host totally unused connected to different storage "in case the cluster dies". Are you replicating VMs from your cluster on Nimble1 to the solo host on Nimble2? If so, how are you doing this? Are these 3 hosts in the same site/building?

[liontaur]

Thanks for the reply. I'll go through the blog and see if I have any questions after that.

As for the third host. The two Nimbles replicate to each other so if we have a failure in the one building that has the two HA hosts and one Nimble, we'll fire up in the second building with the third host and second Nimble. That would be a more manual process as the second Nimble is attached to the third host but that's it.

Thanks again,

Mark

[liontaur]

Thanks again for the documentation daphnissov. Really the only question I have left is: Can I install the new vcenter server on one of the hosts before upgrading the hosts? Then I guess I can remove the hosts from the old vCenter and add them to the new one and then move all the VMs to one host and upgrade the other and carry on with my plan as outlined above? Huh, guess that's actually two questions.

Thanks for your help so far!

Mark

[daphnissov]

Can I install the new vcenter server on one of the hosts before upgrading the hosts?

Yes, that should not be a problem. Ensure that you have DRS turned off (or reduced to level 1) if applicable. This is to prevent the deployed vCenter appliance from migrating to another host mid-setup, which would cause an abort and ultimate failure.

Then I guess I can remove the hosts from the old vCenter and add them to the new one and then move all the VMs to one host and upgrade the other and carry on with my plan as outlined above?

Yes, just keep in mind the things in that article as caveats paying special attention to hardware/firmware compatibility and reconfiguring any applications as required.