Upgrade Path from ESX 3.x to ESXi 5.1

[mykul71]

I was asked to take over managing the ESX servers at my place of work. We have two Dell R900's with 64gb of ram in each box. They are connected via fiber through a fiber channel swith to a EMC CX4-120. The ESX servers are running ESX 3.0.2. We also have a server that is running Vmware Infrastructure Client manager 2.5 that is connected to a SQL data base that is located on another server.

I would like to upgrade to ESXi 5.1. From what I have read I think I would have to first upgrade the Infratructure Client Manager to vCenter 4.0 first, then upgrade the two ESX server to 4.0. Afterwards I would update the clients and tools.

At that point should I be able to upgrade the vCenter server again to 5.1 ane then migrate the ESX servers to ESXi 5.1? I do have licensing for ESX 4.0 and I can upgrade the license to 5.1 from what I have read online.

Any help with this would be awesome. Thanks!

 

[cabraun]

It sounds like you are probably running on some pretty old hardware, based on the versions of VMware you are running. You would be best off verifying that everything is on the 5.1 Hardware Compatibility List from your servers to storage to HBAs to NICs etc. That would be step one in my book.

 

[Arisap]

I agree with Cabraun. Especially the cx4. If the cx4 is on the HCL check code levels. Early EMC code levels may not be on the hcl. Also make sure that server CPU's are on the Hcl. Next do not do an upgrade of any kind . build a new virtual center server. Bring all hosts into the new vcenter server. Evacuate host 1, wipe it clean, install esx5.1, bring it into the new virtual center into a new datacenter and new cluster. Cold migrate VM's. rinse and repeat.you will the. Have to upgrade every VM to hardware version 9 and upgrade vmware tools. You should also change your virtual scsi adapters to "vmware paravirtual" and the Vnics to vmxnet3 where appropriate.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I just upgraded my environment from 5.0 to 5.1 and it was a pretty major upgrade. Going back to the other two responses, make sure all your hardware is compatible, make sure all your BIOS and firmware are up to date, make sure your back up software is compatible (or does not require an upgrade, mine did) and follow Arisap's response on evacuating the hosts and re-installing from scratch. It is not an easy process and does require planning. Even going from 5.0 to 5.1 was a pretty major upgrade, it took me about 3 hours to upgrade my two vCenter hosts correctly.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[mykul71]

I don't have any hardware to build a new vcenter server. I only have the two R900s. I checked the HCL and the cpus that are in the R900s are compatible with with ESXi 5.1. All the BIOS and firmware are up to date on the servers. How would I check to see if the HBAs are compatible with the newer versions of ESX/ESXi?

 

[mykul71]

I think what I am going to do is just upgrade to ESX 4.0 then to ESX 4.1 for now.

 

[Provogeek]

Go here

http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

and in the top portion where it says "What are you looking for:" select Storage / SAN to make sure your SAN is on the compatibility list. Then switch the "What are you looking for:" to IO Devices and search for your HBA. This will help you confirm all your hardware is good, or if you need to make a new hardware purchase.

The advice your getting on the ESX host upgraded is pretty sound, it saves you a lot of steps to just reload. Folks with MORE than 5 hosts though should take the advice as a good idea, not a path that should be followed. More things to consider when you get into enterprise deployments. You do have to complete the vCenter upgrade before you do this (and that is true no matter what path you take, vCenter gets upgraded first). By doing a re-install you skip interim upgrade steps that you end up following when using Update Manager in vCenter to upgrade the hosts. Do note, building the host new means you will have to reconfigure all settings since you will have a generic default server when you are done. If you have a lot of settings to duplicate, you will need to figure out if the upgrade replacement path is worth it or if you should just do an in-place upgrade of the hosts.

On upgrading the vCenter server, building new can be helpful, but be aware what your getting into when you do that. Only two hosts, so you most likely do not have enterprise, so no worry on the dvSwitch configs or DRS Resource objects (if you do have enterprise licensing, then worry about these things). What you will loose though is any folder structure you have in the VM/Template inventory view. I have replaced the vCenter server in some small deployments because it was just easier. Others though I upgrade the vCenter server because there is just to much config data that would need to be replicated. Other than that, the DB just holds historical performance data. Normally, the deciding factor is the OS vCenter runs on. If it is not 64bit, then a new server MUST be built (vCenter after 4.1 stopped supporting 32bit OSs). In cases where the config info was needed, we went though a DB migration.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Brent Schmidt Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple[/color red]

http://www.kiscc.com

Novell Platinum Partner Microsoft Gold Partner
VMWare Enterprise Partner Citrix Gold Partner