How to upgrade multiple virtual machine operating system in VMware vSphere in a data center?

Question

In our data center we have 4 physical server having ESXi 5.5 installed on them. On each physical server there are multiple virtual machines running on them and all of these virtual machines are managed by VMware vSphere. All of these virtual machines have Windows Server 2012 installed. I want to upgrade all of virtual machine operating system from Windows 2012 to Windows Server 2012 R2.

The methods I have in mind are: 1- Create a windows 2012 R2 template and export and migrate the virtual machines one by one 2- Go inside the virtual machines one by one and upgrade them.

Is there any best practice advised for this matter which will have advantage of time and efficiency without loosing data?

This question has nothing whatsoever to do with these being VMs or using vSphere/vCenter - it's 100% to do with Windows updates. — Chopper3, Mar 15 '16 at 13:39
@Chopper3 Are you trying to say that I have to manually go inside the 30 virtual machine to update their operating system? — Mehdi, Mar 15 '16 at 13:43
`Are you trying to say that I have to manually go inside the 30 virtual machine to update their operating system?` - Yes. How else would you do it? — joeqwerty, Mar 15 '16 at 13:57

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 15 '16 at 13:57

6

Use a tool like the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit or System Center Configuration Manager to manage your in-place upgrades of the OS if you want to avoid a manual process. Whatever the solution is, it's going to be external to vSphere.

answered Mar 15 '16 at 13:57

MDMarra

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https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852344.aspx – Mehdi Mar 15 '16 at 16:42
@mehdi what does WSUS have to do with this? – MDMarra Mar 15 '16 at 20:11
@MDMara From this video you can find the details instruction https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luPy3lxbBKE – Mehdi Apr 02 '16 at 13:48
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@mehdi WSUS has nothing to do with operating system upgrades, though. – MDMarra Apr 02 '16 at 14:20

How to upgrade multiple virtual machine operating system in VMware vSphere in a data center?

1 Answers1