VMware Upgrade from 4.1 to current?

[samuk]

Hi,

We are looking to upgrade our VMware infrastructure.

• 3 ESX Hosts running VSphere 4  (4.1.0, 800380)
• 1 VCenter Server running Version 4.1.0, 925676)
• All is SAN attached

Some questions:

1. Should i upgrade to the current version of VSphere? 5.5 or 5.1
2. What is the upgrade steps, in what order do i upgrade? the systems are live.
3. I read somewhere the datastores can not be upgraded? does this mean i will have to create new Datastores migrate the VM's to this?

edit:

I found this link: does the same apply if going to 5.5?

How to: Upgrade to vSphere 5 VMGuru

Thanks

[vNEX · Accepted solution]

Hi,

definitely go for the latest release (5.5 U2) [only HW or SW limitations of your current environment can push you to 5.1]

before you start with upgrade check that your actual environment meet all the requirements (including VMware HCL) for vSphere 5.5 use these links:

VMware KB: Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5 best practices

VMware Compatibility Guide: System Search

Upgrade steps with correct order:

Upgrading Environments with Host Clusters

VMFS3 datastores can be upgraded to VMFS5 once all of your hosts will be on 5.x release or non of the legacy (4.1) hosts are accessing the datastore...

For more info about VMFS5 upgrade see:

VMware KB: Frequently Asked Questions on VMware vSphere 5.x for VMFS-5

In addition have a look at these sources:

VMware KB: Block size limitations of a VMFS datastore

VMware KB: Methods of upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5

VMware KB: Methods for upgrading to ESXi 5.5

[samuk]

thanks for all the info - am reading through it