How to perform Windows VCenter Upgrade with less or no issue at all ?

[AlbertWT]

Hi,

I have 24x VMware ESXi servers 5.1 Update 1 on HP Blade Servers managed by my Windows VMware VCenter VM that is currently on version vCenter Server 5.1 Update 1 (build 1064983 2013-04-25) as follows:

Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Standard - 1x vCPU & 10 GB vRAM

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard Edition (64-bit) (SP2) - 10.0.4000.0

My question is that which of the below VCenter version upgrade is less stressful or with no issue at all:

VMware vCenter Server 5.1 Update 3a and modules

VMware vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2e and modules

Note: Since the VCenter and SQL DB are in one single place, I have clonedto template the exsiting running VCenter server for easy roll back by deploying from template when connecting directly to ESXi where the template is running.

Thanks in advance.

[rcporto]

I will recommend you go directly to VMware vCenter Server 5.5 Update 2e to avoid any problem with SSO version1 from vCenter 5.1.

[AlbertWT]

rcporto‌, At the moment my VCenter is not having any issue I'm just wanting to apply the latest edition of version 5 due to my ESXi servers are all 5.1 Update 3.

So yes, does the inline upgrade of VCenter 5.5 Update 2e will be smooth or still have some issue with SSO like always?

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

Since the upgrade process to 5.1 U3 or 5.5 U2 is like the same, I strictly recommend you upgrade to version 5.5, this way you don't need upgrade your vCenter again if you decide upgrade your hosts later time.

[AlbertWT]

ok, is there anything that I need to know in particular before performing the production VCenter server ?