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aj800
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VM Hardware Upgrade - Risks, and can you do All VMs at once?

Our vSphere environments are predominantly Linux environments.  Particularly, Red Hat 6 & 7, occasionally RHEL5, other UNIX-based appliances and Windows.  We just upgraded the vCenter Server to 6.5, the hosts and the vDS to match at 6.5, also.  Now we'd like to complete the environment with the VM hardware upgrade and (VMware Tools, also).

What are the risks with doing this, and how can this be done with the least disruption possible?  I understand you can schedule the Compatibility upgrade on running VMs, so that it will be upgraded on the next 'normal' reboot.  But how is 'normal' determined, and can this be done on multiple VMs at once, since most (but not all) are running and there is a variety of Guest OS systems?  If so, how?  Thanks, in advance!

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jburen
Expert
Expert

After upgrading the hosts I would definitely upgrade VMware Tools. But doing it after a reboot could create a situation you don't want. Suppose the server admin reboots the server after doing some maintenance. When the VM comes back online he logs in to finish his work. But suddenly the VM reboots again because of the VMware Tools installation. I don't think the admin would be pleased.

Anyway, there are several ways to upgrade VMware Tools. If you go to vSphere Upgrade | VMware vSphere Central there is a section called "VMware Tools and VM Compatibility Upgrade". There you can find a couple of blogs about this subject.

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pragg12
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi,

What are the risks with doing this, and how can this be done with the least disruption possible?  I understand you can schedule the Compatibility upgrade on running VMs, so that it will be upgraded on the next 'normal' reboot.  But how is 'normal' determined, and can this be done on multiple VMs at once, since most (but not all) are running and there is a variety of Guest OS systems?  If so, how?  Thanks, in advance!

Let's talk about windows server based VMs first.

You can schedule VM Hardware Version upgrade for Windows based servers 2003 and above as per ESXi support for the OS per compatibility guide.

You can schedule them to auto upgrade when guest OS reboot for the first time after this setting is applied. This reboot can come at any time; BSOD or any maintenance activity which requires reboot of OS. Without reboot, the upgrade won't be done. I believe you have already gone through this VMware blog post for scheduling auto upgrade.

Now for linux based VMs.

For normal linux based VMs, you can verify if the OS is supported by the ESXi through the same OS compatibility guide link above.

If the OS is supported by ESXi, then hardware version is as well. Though I would recommend to test for each flavor of OS you have before scheduling mass upgrade.

For appliance based VMs, I will advise to not mass upgrade. Confirm with vendor if the hardware version upgrade to required version is supported for the said appliance, then only upgrade.

Let me know if you have any further query regarding hardware version upgrade.

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Deso1ator
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I would not bother with the VM hardware upgrade if you are on at least version 11, unless there is specific feature in a new version you are looking for.

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