VI3 upgrade to vSphere4.0

[euphony]

I am planning to upgrade our VI3 infrastructure to VSphere 4. The VI3 consists of the following:

esx servers 3.5 U2 running on Dell PE1955 blades with Intel Xeon Quad core E5335 CPUs

Virtual Centre 2.5 running on Windows Server 2003 as a VM

The VC database is running on SQL server 2005 SP2 and a size of 3GB

No Update Manager running at the moment on VC2.5.

The license server is running on a separate Windows box.

I have enough upgrade license keys for VSphere 4.

Total of 8 ESX servers in VI3 at the moment but only 5 will be upgraded to ESX 4.0. Would it be possible to run remaining 3 esx servers in the VC4.0?

What would be the best way to upgrade the VC 2.5 to VC 4.0?

What would be the best way to upgrade ESX server 3.5U2 to ESX4.0, Clean install or Update Manager?

Are there any issues upgrading VC2.5 to VC4.0 Update1?

The VMs are stored on datastores mounted on IBM FC SAN DS4500. Is this SAN compatible with vSphere4.0?

Is there anything else I need to consider in this upgrade process?

I need to confirm this information before I start the upgrade process and your input will be highly appreciated.

Regards

Rajesh Rana

[AndreTheGiant]

VC 4.0 can manage both ESX 3.5 and 4.0.

Also you can do VMotion between different hosts (but you must not upgrade VMs to virtual hardware 7).

I suggest to implement VUM 4.0 to manage the upgrade process.

For upgrade steps see also:

http://www.vmware.com/products/vsphere/upgrade-center/upgrade.html

Andre

[AnatolyVilchins]

None of this sounds too much trouble.

Firstly update your VC, go straight to 4U1, not via 4.0 ok - just

use the regular upgrade path, backup your system first though of

course. Oh and there's no problem having VC4 managing v3.5 and v4

hosts, you won't be able to lose your license server until you get rid

of your last v3.5 box though of course.

Personally I'd wipe and rebuild your ESX boxes unless you have a

particularly complex network setup. I might be tempted to disconnect

your servers from the SAN during the rebuild by the way.

Oh and your DS is supported (Clicky)

from http://serverfault.com/questions/101629/vi3-upgrade-to-vsphere4-0

Best of luck.

Starwind Software Developer

www.starwindsoftware.com

[TobiasKracht]

As Anatoly has told you, I think the better way
is a complete re-installation, I guess you had clustered your
installation? So, if you correctly set your servers, one missing during
the operations will be automatically replace by another one on the
cluster.


In my corporate, we have replace all our VMWare ESX VI3.5 by a VSphere 4.0 with this way.

StarWind Software R&D