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vishardb
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Upgrade vSphere from 4.1 to 5.1

Good day everyone,

I am new to VMware and have been tasked with upgrading my company's VMware infrasturcture to v5.1

Presently our vSphere consists of:

  • vCenter 4.1
    • 64 bit physical server
  • SQL Server 2008
    • 64 bit physical server
  • 10 ESX hosts running 4.1

I've been reviewing the document the vSphere Upgrade Guide and based on the procedure outined, approach is as follows:

  • Upgrade vCenter
  • Upgrade Update Manager
  • Upgrade ESX hosts
  • Upgrade datastores to VMFS version 5

The upgrade of vCenter seems straight forward enough.

However, I have questions about upgrading the ESX hosts. I hope to use Update Manager to upgrade the hosts and they provide a warning to backup the hosts, but I haven't found any documentation about backing up the hosts.

Any assitance, advice, suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

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memaad
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Hi,

You  can use vicfg-backup command to take backup of certain about configuration of ESXI host using VIMA. Else you can use Host profile to capture main configuration of ESXI host then restore it to ESXI  when the upgrade is un-successful  ( When using vIMA or host profile , you have to re-install ESXI host to restore back the some setting captured using this tools. )

-- Note : Usually user just re-install ESXI host if it fails while upgrade and use host profile to restore the settings.

Regards

Mohammed

Mohammed | Mark it as helpful or correct if my suggestion is useful.

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memaad
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Hi,

You  can use vicfg-backup command to take backup of certain about configuration of ESXI host using VIMA. Else you can use Host profile to capture main configuration of ESXI host then restore it to ESXI  when the upgrade is un-successful  ( When using vIMA or host profile , you have to re-install ESXI host to restore back the some setting captured using this tools. )

-- Note : Usually user just re-install ESXI host if it fails while upgrade and use host profile to restore the settings.

Regards

Mohammed

Mohammed | Mark it as helpful or correct if my suggestion is useful.
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vishardb
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Thank you.

That seems to make sense.

I am hoping for a relatively straight forward upgrade with little or no hiccups.

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memaad
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Hi,

But make sure you take solid back of VMware vCenter DB.

Regards

Mohammed

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vishardb
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Thanks for the tip Mohammed!

I was under the impression that since the DB is on a separate that for the most part, it would have been unaffected.

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raog
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The DB also gets upgraded during upgrade.

Plus with vsphere 5.1, there is also SSO to be installed Smiley Happy

Regards

Girish

To Virtualization and beyond! PS::If you felt the answer as helpful, please mark it as helpful/answered so that it helps other users as well! Blog:: www.virtualtipsntricks.com
vishardb
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Girish,

Thanks for you heads up. The documentation that I've read thus far spoke of SSO and that it will installed as part of vCenter upgrade to 5.1.

However, I haven't read anything about the DB being upgraded during the install. Our DB is a separate physical Microsoft SQL 2008 server. Does that still apply? If yes, can you point me in the direction of any documentation that outlines it? I will need that to have for my upgrade plan to be approved by our Change Advisory Board.

Thank you.

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raog
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Not for an external DB.. what i meant was some tables will get updated including the vpx_version hence the need for taking a backup if something goes wrong.

SSO comes as part of the ISO but its a separate installer. So the order of installation would be SSO, then IS and then VC.

Regards

Girish

To Virtualization and beyond! PS::If you felt the answer as helpful, please mark it as helpful/answered so that it helps other users as well! Blog:: www.virtualtipsntricks.com
vishardb
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Thanks for all the help thus far guys! It is very much appreciated!

I'm hoping to start the upgrade of our environment next week.

Another challenge for me thus far based on the documentation I've read is the database for SSO. The documentation says we can use an external DB or an internal DB. Given that our vCenter DB is already external, my logic was to put to put the SSO on that same DB server but I can't find any documentation on how do that. Any help on this will be appreciated.

Thank you.

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raog
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Refer the section Database Prerequisites

VMware vSphere 5.1

Basically, you need to run these two scripts present under the

<installsource>:\Single Sign On\DBScripts\SSOServer\schema\mssql\rsaIMSLiteMSSQLSetupTablespaces.sql and rsaIMSLiteMSSQLSetupUsers.sql

In these two files replace the text "change me" with values appropriate for your env.

Regards

Girish

To Virtualization and beyond! PS::If you felt the answer as helpful, please mark it as helpful/answered so that it helps other users as well! Blog:: www.virtualtipsntricks.com
vishardb
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Girish,


Thank you very much sir!!! I've been going through all the upgrade documentation and as such skipped some the actual installation documentation.

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AlbertWT
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Does this means that the installer for the inline upgrade also creates additional DB for the SSO in the SQL Server or whatever DBMS in use ?

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vishardb
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Based on what I've read thus far Albert is that the installation DVD has scripts for the different databases that you run prior to the installation to prepare for SSO.

VMware vSphere 5.1 Documentation Center

Verify that your vCenter Server database meets the database requirements. See vCenter Server Database Configuration Notes and Preparing vCenter Server Databases.

Create a vCenter Server database, unless you plan to install the bundled database.

Create a vCenter Single Sign-On database, unless you plan to install the bundled database.

If you are using an existing database for Single Sign-On, you must create a database user (RSA_USER) and database administrator (RSA_DBA) to use for the Single Sign-On database installation and setup. To create these users, run the script rsaIMSLiteDBNameSetupUsers.sql. The script is included in the vCenter Server installer download package, at vCenter Server Installation directory\Single Sign On\DBScripts\SSOServer\Schema\your_existing_database..

If you are using an existing database with your vCenter Single Sign-On installation or upgrade, make sure that the table spaces are named RSA_DATA and RSA_INDEX. Any other table space names will cause the vCenter Single Sign-On Installation to fail.

If you are using an existing database for Single Sign-On, to ensure that table space is created for the database, run the script rsaIMSLite<DBName>SetupTablespaces.sql. The script is included in the vCenter Server installer download package, at vCenter Server Installation directory\Single Sign On\DBScripts\SSOServer\Schema\your_existing_database. You can run this script prior to the installation, or during the installation, when you are prompted by the installer. You can leave the installer to run the script, and resume the installer after you run the script.

If you are using an existing Microsoft SQL Server database for Single Sign-On, and you want to use a dynamic port, you must provide a named instance for the SQL database during the Single Sign-On installation. The instance name created during Microsoft SQL Server installation usually defaults to MSSQLSERVER. For non-default instance names, you can determine the instance name after Microsoft SQL Server is installed by using the SQL Configuration Manager. Under SQL Server Network Configuration, the SQL Configuration Manager lists all available instances of the SQL installation.

If you install Single Sign-On with an external Microsoft SQL Server database, using a static port, and you have a firewall between Single Sign-On and the external database, you must open a static port on the firewall to communicate between Single Sign-On and the database. For example, to do this in Windows Server 2008, you can add a static port in the Windows Firewall Control Panel.

AlbertWT
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Many thanks for the clarification Vishar, so in this case I can just execute the script for my SQL Server to create the SSO DB manually in the SQL Server 2005 box...?

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raog
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If you are using the embedded DB, this will  be done for you automatically. If using an external DB, then yes you will need to run the scripts.


Regards

Girish

To Virtualization and beyond! PS::If you felt the answer as helpful, please mark it as helpful/answered so that it helps other users as well! Blog:: www.virtualtipsntricks.com
AlbertWT
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Rao, so in this case the VCenter 5.1u1b Simple Install will do the SQL 2005 Express 32 bit to SQL 2008 Express 32 bit migration automatically ?

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raog
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There will be no migration.. the DB for VC will continue to be 2k5 Express. For SSO i think the installer would install the SQL 2k8 express DB.


Regards

Girish

To Virtualization and beyond! PS::If you felt the answer as helpful, please mark it as helpful/answered so that it helps other users as well! Blog:: www.virtualtipsntricks.com
AlbertWT
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That is why Girish, I'm trying to avoid having 2x Express database instance in a single VCenter server as it would be too much, I guess I'll just migrate the content into the proper SQL Server.

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vishardb
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So I completed the upgrade of my vCenter server to 5.1 today. All went well with some minor issues which Google helped with.

Thank you to everyone to provided assistance to me while preparing for this upgrade!

My biggest concern with the installation of SSO and it's DB. Our vCenter DB current exists on a separate 64bit SQL 2008 R2 server so the ODBC connection that was there worked flawlessly. The scripts provided worked as described after the customisation for our environment.

The following links helped me prepare for the SSO installation:

The real issue that stomped me was this:

installation error.PNG

The wizard was interuppted before VMware vCenter Server could be completed installed.

vCenter Server has been successfully installed, but one or more of the vCenter Server components was not installed.

Once I checked the logs they made mention of an exist code of 1603 which led me VMware KB: Installing Profile-Driven Storage via vCenter Server fails with an error code 1603 which did not help.

After some Googling, I found a forum where some mentioned that some of the VMware services were using a domain account instead of the system account. When I checked my VMware services, the following services were found to be using a domain account instead of the service account:

  • VMware VirtualCenter Management Webservices
  • VMware VirtualCenter Server
  • VMwareVCMSDS

Once I changed the services to the use the service account, I re-ran in the vCenter installation and the install was successfully completed without any errors.

Hope this helps anyone who may have a similar issue.

Regards,

Vishard

AlbertWT
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Vishar,

Many thanks for sharing the solution with us here, so the service account that you use here is that Local SYSTEM or just local built-in server account not the AD service account ?

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