Installation guide

Example Upgrade Scenarios 12
Upgrade scenarios for vSphere 4.1 include cases with and without clustered hosts, hosts that you upgrade on
the same machine on which they are currently running (in-place upgrades), and hosts that you upgrade using
different machines (migration upgrades).
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Upgrading Environments with Host Clusters,” on page 85
n
“Upgrading Environments without Host Clusters,” on page 86
n
“Moving Virtual Machines Using vMotion During an Upgrade,” on page 88
n
“Moving Powered Off or Suspended Virtual Machines During an Upgrade (with vCenter Server),” on
page 89
n
“Upgrading to vCenter Server on a New Machine,” on page 91
Upgrading Environments with Host Clusters
This example scenario shows how you can use vCenter Update Manager to simplify the host and virtual
machine upgrade process and minimize downtime in environments that include host clusters.
These are the prerequisites for this scenario:
n
You must have VirtualCenter 2.5 or higher or vCenter Server 4.0.
n
You must have vCenter Update Manager.
n
All your hosts must be ESX 3.5/ESXi 3.5 or higher.
The following list of tasks provides a high-level overview of the upgrade process.
1 Upgrade vCenter Server 2.5 or higher to vCenter Server 4.1.
NOTE Starting with vCenter Server 4.1 Update 1, you cannot upgrade vCenter Server from releases prior
to VirtualCenter Server 2.5 Update 6.
a Make sure your database is compatible with vCenter Server 4.1. See the vSphere Compatibility
Matrixes on the VMware vSphere documentation Web site.
b Make sure that you have the required permissions to perform this procedure. See “Database
Prerequisites,” on page 23.
c Take a full backup of the vCenter Server database. See your database documentation.
d Back up the vCenter Server SSL certificates.
The downtime required for this upgrade is based on the amount of data in the database. During this time,
you cannot perform provisioning operations, such as cloning or creating virtual machines.
VMware, Inc.
85