I have a remote site with a single ESX 4.0 host. I need to update it to ESXi 5.1. I guess I can't do an in place upgrade since it's ESX to ESXi. VMs are all on an ISCSI storage device and managed by a Vcenter box. I have nothing to Vmotion to to make this easier.
I'm thinking I need to something like this:
-shutdown all Vms.
-Remove host from Vcenter inventory
-Disconnect storage device
-Have someone at remote site put ESX i 5.1 CD in server
-Boot server and do clean install
-Reconfigure as new box
-Set up Vswitches as they were on old box
-Connect up to storage device
-manually import all VMs
Any easier ways you can think of?
Maybe I should send down a crappy box with a trial of ESXi 5 on there to vmotion to just long enough to do the install?
