looking to upgrade to the latest version need some suggestions

[rongill]

Hello,

Currently have 3.02 and upgrading to the latest vsphere 4.1 I think??

Anyways because my subscription ran out and going through getting another maintenance agreement my business partner says I may need to do a fresh install of vsphere (cheaper).

With that said I can have downtime on all my servers. What is the simplest most efficient way of accomplishing this?

If its not 2 painful do to it during business hours I would like to do that then I don't have to work a weekend.

Thanks in advance. I have ESX running on a blade with the VM's on the SAN

[jcwuerfl]

Setup your new vCenter 4.1 Server and ESX 4.1 Hosts, get eveything up and running and make sure everything is working with a couple of test VM's. Then when you can, shut down your VM's and use vmware converter to move them to the new system.

[rongill]

Setup your new vCenter 4.1 Server and ESX 4.1 Hosts, get eveything up and running and make sure everything is working with a couple of test VM's. Then when you can, shut down your VM's and use vmware converter to move them to the new system.

I am using the same hardware as 3.02

Should these be my steps?

1. Remove vcenter2x and install vcenter 4x

2. Shut down all vms and hosts and disconnect from san, format drives and do a clean install.

3. Then use vmconvertor on each VM

[jcwuerfl]

Ah in that case first, goto www.vmware.com/go/hcl and make sure all of your current hardware devices are supported under vSphere v4.1. If its not, you may want to consider purchasing new hardware that is. vSphere you need to make sure you have x64 bit hardware and have it support VT. vCenter 4.1 is x64 bit ONLY which means if you do have x32 you would have to format your vCenter server and reinstall windows.

Another option is putting vCenter into a VM and using that to install vCenter 4.1 on Windows 2008 R2 x64 lets say along with SQL'05/08 on the same or a second VM.

[rongill]

Looks like it does

I have a IBM blade HS21 5583L4U which has a Intel Xeon 5140 Series processor which is supported.

Currently I have vcenter running on a 32bit machine .. but I do have another machine that is running 2k364bit and can easily install it on there if the VMroute is a worse choice.

[jcwuerfl]

I didn't see the HS21-5583 Specific model but yes, there was a couple others with the 5100 series processor that listed 4.1.

I did click on the 4.1 note though and it did say that it wasn't FT compatible if that matters. Yes, that sounds good re: the 2k3-64bit I believe it still does support that. FYI: If you install Update Manager that requires a x32 bit ODBC driver but vCenter requires a x64 bit driver which was one thing I ran into with x64.

[rongill]

I typed the model wrong its - 8853L4U. Not sure which way to go about doing it. I guess thats why im posting to learn from others that have already done it.

[jcwuerfl · Accepted solution]

Gotcha; HS21-8853

I would just do 4.1 vCenter, then remove 1 blade at a time from the old env. format it and install 4.1 on it and add it to the new vCenter then use Converter to upgrade the VM's. BTW: After you convert them make sure to first update the VMware tools and after everything is working for a while, then upgrade the virtual hardware to version 7 and make sure you get a full vmdk backup of the VM's before you upgrade the Virtual Hardware just in case.

[rongill]

K now its making alot more sense. I use vranger so i'll take full backups before doing anything.

I'm assuming I use vmconvertor from my workstation and there is an option to upgrade them to 4.0 and move them to the upgraded host?

Does the vcenter4.0 need to a reboot of the server after it installs?

Then upgrade vmware tools easy enough and upgrading the hardware version.

Cool thanks !!

I'm actually doing the upgrade in a few weeks and by the looks of it can do it during working hours. Will update the thread when I start.

[jcwuerfl]

Yes, you can specify the the old location and new location which is not a problem.

Yes, after the install I'm pretty sure there's a reboot in there. Good luck!

[rongill]

Few questions:

I am upgrading my HDS AMS 500 san to AMS 2100 .. I will have both running for sometime until I fully migrate the data.

I have 2 array's NCS and AMS.  On the NCS I have all my VM OS drives stored and the AMS is used for the data drives of all the VM's

Would you suggest I do the hardware upgrade first then upgrade to vsphere or the other way around?

When I do the format of each blade should I disconnect that from my SAN?

Should I vmotion all the VM's to another server then Vmotion back and upgrade?