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We are upgrading 4 hosts from ESXi 5 to 5.5 We are adding 4 more hosts with clean ESXi 5.5 installs We are also upgrading our vCS 5 to the vCSA 5.5 Using Enterprise Plus Licensing

Issue: I am trying to figure out the best way to make this transition. Our 4 hosts are running about 100 VMs and the 4 hosts we are adding are clean slates.

This is what I am thinking... Please help me out guys

  1. After the 4 new hosts are setup in the Data Center running clean ESXi 5.5 I will deploy the vCSA ovf and register the 4 hosts with the Linux based appliance.
  2. Now I have 4 new ESXi 5.5 hosts registered and running with vCSA 5.5 but I still have my 4 old hosts with ESXi 5 and registered to the old WIndows vCS running about 100 VMs
  3. At this point I am thinking of shutting down the VMs on my older 4 hosts and removing them from the Windows vCenter Server Inventory and simply registering them with the new vCSA
  4. Will all my VMs be transferred over with the hosts if I shut them down and put the hosts into maintenance mode????
  5. Now I should have all 8 hosts registered with my new vCSA. But the original 4 hosts still need to be upgraded to ESXi 5.5
  6. Move the 100 VMs to the new 4 hosts running ESXi 5.5 and upgrade the 4 older hosts.

  7. Now I should have 8 hosts with ESXi 5.5 using the vCSA

    • Do I need the host running my Domain Controller to be the one vCSA is deployed to? Or do i need to deploy the vCSA without a hostname using DHCP so I don't need to map it to DNS with a static IP. Little confused on what to do about this upgrade regarding my DC. Please help.

Cheers!

Newbster
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Steps 1 and 2 are great, for step 3 simply add the existing hosts to the new VCSA, yes you'll have to drag all the VMs/Templates/Networks/Datastores to any new folder hierarchy as that'll be lost but the VMs will just migrate over just fine - no need for any VM or host power-offs.

Then all you need to do is vMotion the VMs from the old hosts to the new ones and then simply maint-mode/shutdown the old hosts, boot them off the 5.5 .iso file, run the updater and reboot - that should be it.

Oh and 'Do I need the host running my Domain Controller to be the one vCSA is deployed to" - no :)

Chopper3
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  • So your saying to just unregiser the old hosts from the Windows vCS and keep their VMs running. Then add them to the new vCSA through add host wizard? – Newbster Jan 27 '15 at 19:29
  • My only concern is I need to have my DC setup before deploying the vCSA so I can set a static hostname/IP. – Newbster Jan 27 '15 at 19:31
  • Should I unregister the host (running my DC) from Windows vCS. Then just deploy the ovf vCSA from that host so I can set static hostname/IP. From there I could add the 4 new hosts that are clean slates. – Newbster Jan 27 '15 at 19:33
  • The other 3 hosts that are still registered with the Windows vCS would then just repeat the process of un-registering them from the Windows vCS, keep all the VMs running, then use the add host wizard on my new vCSA to import them? – Newbster Jan 27 '15 at 19:34
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    You don't need to unregister anything, simply add the existing hosts to the new VCSA, that's all - seriously, nothing else - the DC will carry on working, you don't need to change anything, just add the hosts to the vC - certainly there's nothing you need to do to the AD setup. – Chopper3 Jan 27 '15 at 20:06