Hi,
I have three hosts, each running ESXi 4.0. vCenter is installed as a VM on one of the hosts and I now wish to update all three hosts to version 4.1.
As I understand it, I'll need to do the following:
1. Update vCenter to 4.1
2. Update each host to ESXi 4.1
3. Update VDR from 1.1 to 1.2
Ideally, I'd be able to update two of my hosts from vCenter using the update manager though I've never used this before. When I last did some upgrade work (to 4.0 U1) if I recall correctly, I booted from the ESXi installation disk and selected the update option. This is exactly what using Update Manager achieves anyway isn't it?
I'll be in my data centre anyway so I don't need to work remotely. Is it easier to just update the hosts from the installation disk - I take it there is an update option?
Lastly, I'll be adding an extra physical processor and some more RAM to the host with vCenter on it. I assume there shouldn't be any issue with that?
Thanks ![]()
The steps are fine, just add finally the VMware Tools update.
VUM 4.1 can update the hosts in the proper way.
You can some problem with vCenter Server. It's already a x64 machine?
The new 4.1 version is only a 64 bit version.
Andre
Thanks for the reply! Of course, VMware Tools on each VM will add significantly to the workload - last time I did an update, the VMT updates took several times longer than the updates to the hosts!
I've been reading around the forums and I did see the following thread:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/279777?tstart=105
It seems then that updating from the physical ISO is no longer an option and I must upgrade using the ZIP update archive, presumably from Update Manager. As I say, I've never user Update Manager before and compared to the ISO route, it seems a bit more involved. The ISO update from 3.5 to 4.0 was simple - just run the ISO and select the update option - job done. Now it seems there's no ISO to do the same for what sounds like a simpler task - updating 4.0 to 4.1. It also worries me that I'll have to do the update on the host that's actually running the vCenter VM which is conducting the upgrade - as you can imagine, I'm a bit concerned about that!
Luckily, my vCenter Server is hosted on a Windows 2008 Standard Edition 64 bit so I'm covered there. How fortunate it was that I didn't ever get round to moving vCenter to a dedicated, physical server as the one I was going to use would probably have given me issues installing Windows 2008 Standard Edition x64...
I think the way around updating the host with my vCenter VM on it is as follows:
1. Update vCenter
2. Upgrade my other hosts to 4.1
3. Move the vCenter VM to one of the upgraded hosts (though not using vCenter of course)
4. Upgrade the remaining host
5. Move vCenter back (or leave it where it is probably)
Does that sound reasonable?
