Upgrade confusion - 5.5.1 to 6.5 sequencing

[MichaelLeone]

Hello. I am looking at the Interoperability Matrix, as part of planning my upgrade. Currently I am running vCenter 5.5U3b, with all ESXi hosts also at 5.5u3b, and my SRM is 5.5.1.

Where my confusion comes in - since my SSO and vCenter are on the same server, I can upgrade vCenter in place from 5.5U3b directly to 6.5. And then do the same with all my ESXi hosts. (at least, as far as I can tell from much digging)

But what about SRM? Once my vCenter finishes upgrading, my SRM won't work, right, because 5.5.1 doesn't support vSphere 6.5. (does the vCenter upgrade remove SRM, because it is incompatible?)

So do I then upgrade 5.5.1 to 5.8.1, then to 6.0, then 6.11, then 6.5? A whole series of incremental SRM upgrades.

It's very confusing. Can anybody shed light on a simple sequence of steps, for those of us moving from vSphere 5.5U3b to 6.5, with SRM 5.5.1?

Thanks

[admin]

Unfortunately there isn't a simple way to do this As you have seen, SRM's upgrade path is quite restrictive so you would require a series of jumps to get to your desired level:

VMware Product Interoperability Matrices

But, it is even more complex because for each step you would need a compatible vCenter Server to successfully register with. Otherwise the SRM install will not succeed. This is bad enough if you need to upgrade in two steps, because you need to upgrade VC, then SRM, then VC, then SRM. But in your case there are even more stages.

Do you have a very large SRM environment with lots of advanced configuration? If not, I would definitely consider just upgrading vCenter then doing a fresh install of SRM 6.5 and reconfiguring all your Protection Groups, Recovery Plans, etc.

[admin]

But if you really need to upgrade, I think the sequence should be:

1) SRM 5.5.1 > 5.8.1

2) VC 5.5u3 > 6.0u3

3) SRM 5.8.1 > 6.1.2

4) VC 6.0u3 > 6.5u1

5) SRM 6.1.2 > 6.5.1