ESXi 5.5 is supported with vCenter 5.1?

[puneitsupport]

Hello,

I am planning to upgrade ESXi 5.1 tp 5.5.

How ever I want to keep vCenter on 5.1 platform.

Want to know if ESXi 5.5 machines can connect to vCenter 5.1

[weinstein5]

Welcome to the Community - According to the intreoperability matrix - http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php? yes it is -

[abhilashhb]

No vCenter 5.1 does not support ESXi 5.5

Check the screenshot below

You will have to upgrade your vCenter to version 5.5 to manage 5.5 ESXi hosts.

[schepp]

weinstein5 wrote:

Welcome to the Community - According to the intreoperability matrix - http://partnerweb.vmware.com/comp_guide2/sim/interop_matrix.php? yes it is -

weinstein5 For me the matrix shows ESXi 5.5 can only be managed by vCenter Server 5.5

[weinstein5]

You are correct - I transposed the vCenter version and ESXi version -

[abhilashhb]

I thought so. Happens

[puneitsupport]

Thanks all for quick reply.

That's very disappointing. 

I think i'll disconnect my server's from vCenter & will just upgrade ESXi on them.

I am ok to manager those server's individually via vSphere client.

[abhilashhb]

If your concerned about the upgrade process its really simple. It will just take less than an hour.

[puneitsupport]

Problem is we don't have control over vCenter & remote IT team don't have any plan to go for vCenter 5.5 as of now.

[abhilashhb]

Make them understand that Centralized management is a crucial part of your virtual environment and it will cause you loose lot of features. And if you upgrade the ESXi hosts and vcenter it does not do any good and its tedious to maintain hosts individually.

----If you found my answer correct/helpful please close the thread by marking the answer appropriately-----

[puneitsupport]

Thanks for suggestion

I am now planning to setup vCenter in local environment. Just a quick question hope you can answer. While configuring local vCenter [ on Windows 2008 R2 OS ] do I need Windows/Active Directory domain admin credentials? I have rights to add device to domain already but not having domain admin rights.

[abhilashhb]

You will need your Server where you are installing vCenter to have a FQDN. So the rights that you have would be enough. You will need admin credentials only if you want to have AD authentication for your vcenter. If not you could go with local users or SSO.

If you have less than 5 hosts you could go with vCenter Server appliance. It will save you the headache of a windows license and also easy to setup.