Upgrade vCenter server from 4.1 to 5.x - which route

[timjwatts]

Hi,

I have a 4.1 licence with the option to upgrade (free) to 5.x. One vCenter server as a VM managing 4 hosts with iSCSI SAN.

Which route would you take to upgrade vCenter:

1) In place upgrade (after backing up the VM)

2) Create brand new VM, install vCenter 5.x and remove the hosts from 4.1 and add to 5.x?

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Notes and thoughts:

My vCenter sever is self contained - MSSQL and all supporting services except DNS and mail run on it.

Option 1 is probably the easiest.

Option 2 gives a warm and fuzzy feeling of starting anew without cruft. However, it scares me that it might break the system and I suspect I'll lose my performance stats going back 3 years.

What do you folk think? Not done this particular upgrade before...

Many thanks - Tim

[corvettefisher]

For an environment that size and if SQLEXPRESS is the DB I would choose an in place upgrade, however if you are on 4.1 make sure the database is on a supported version such as 2008 R2 for 5.5.

Additionally you could always deploy the Linux Appliance which runs an embedded database and does not require any microsoft licensing, the draw back is that vum would need to be installed on a windows server.

As for performance metrics you can export those out of vCenter to keep as a record should you choose a new stand alone vcenter, or vcenter appliance

[timjwatts]

Hi - Many thanks for that.

We're using a full MSSQL copy, not express (I'm a linux sysadmin, so please excuse poor MS terminology).

I'd totally forgotten about vSphere 5 having a linux vCenter option - I would *much* prefer that. Do you reckon it would be happy with 200+ VMs and 4 hosts?

The other dumbo question is: if I "remove" an ESXi 4.1 host from vCenter 4.1 - and later add it to vCenter 5.x, is there any risk that it's distributed vSwitches will get confused or otherwise broken?

Cheers! Tim

[vThinkBeyondVM]

Answer to your first query on linux vCenter :

vCenter Server Appliance: Linux VC capability

Hosts (with embedded vPostgres database) 100

Virtual machines (with embedded vPostgres database) 3000

Hosts (with Oracle database) 1000

Virtual machines (with Oracle database) 10000

Ref:http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vsphere5/r55/vsphere-55-configuration-maximums.pdf

If you install new vCenter from scratch ie. 5.x. you can add your ESXi 4.1 host to it but you will lose all vCenter settings/configuration from earlier vCenter.

You need to configure everything from scratch on new VC

[timjwatts]

Hi,

Thanks very much for the link - that's very useful.

Hmm. So essentially, as I understand it:

0) There's no way to "import" an entire running cluster into a new vCenter server?

1) I have enough capacity to take one host out at any time;

2) I could build a new cluster based on one host with the same basic config (iSCSI, management, vMotion, FT nets and main internet links)

3) Then hot migrate 1/3 of my VMs to it.

4) Make a new compliance profile from the new host

5) Remove 2nd host from old cluster and move to new cluster and apply profile.

6) Migrate another 1/3 of VMs over

7) Repeat 5-6 until done.

Hmm - that does seem like a lot of work and a lot of scope for stuff to go wrong. I really need to read up on this rather a lot more...

Tim