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Has anyone ever attempted an ESX upgrade for centricity VM's? We are using ESX 4 and would love to be able to move to a newer version but I am unsure of compatibility with the CPS servers.
Posted : August 16, 2016 3:27 am
I have not done an in place migration, but have done a move migration.
Built updated server with the new version and migrated the servers to the new unit.
Then conducted an in place upgraded the existing server. Moved the servers back.
Is VM stored on a SAN or on the local box?
Posted : August 16, 2016 4:22 am
do you really mean esx or esxi?
Posted : August 16, 2016 5:43 am
Topic starter
Yes unfortunately I do mean ESX we had our servers set up just before CPS 9.5 was released. We haven't made any improvements to the VM software since then.
Posted : August 16, 2016 6:09 am
Topic starter
It is Local
Posted : August 16, 2016 6:09 am
The method I posted would work for you.
If you system is that old it would be a good idea to update the hardware as well as the software.
Just shut down the servers before conducting a V2V move using VMware vCenter Converter Standalone Client. Have it move the datastore and the server.
How log it will take will depend on how large you database is.
Posted : August 16, 2016 6:16 am
A quick read says you can upgrade servers from ESX 4.0 U1 (not ESX 4.0, but needs update 1) directly to ESXI 5.1 (not sure about 5.5 but would expect to also work) with out issue. I would suggest not doing it with a live VM though, I'd move my vm's off then test pushing a clone over and upgrading the VM level.
Do you have vcenter? I see a lot of people upgrading their vcenter first then pushing the upgrades out that way.
Posted : August 16, 2016 6:17 am
I am on ESXi 6 now, upgraded from 5.1 recently but I am also using vCenter and have HA enabled so it is nothing to do upgrades. There is not a compatibility problem with CPS, Server 2008R2 or SQL 2008R2. Prior to that I upgraded from 4.1 to 5.1 with no issues, also with a vCenter cluster. I do have some really old hardware (Dell R900) which I used for CPS from 2008 until 2011 but are now standalone machines. They were also recently upgraded to ESXi6 but they are used for my backup servers only now. That upgrade is similar to what you want to do. I did in-place upgrades on those old servers from 5.1 to 6.0 with no problems but I kept a backup of the vmdks just in case. I did not use VMWare converter for a V-V. The only part you would need to be careful about is overwriting the LUN where your data is. The upgrade software is pretty smart and should guide you through the process and properly identify the existing data. Every time I have done it, the proper preserved the data on the shut down VMs so I think you should be OK.
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic
Posted : August 18, 2016 5:27 am
I have done this. Our ESX servers were on HP ML370 G6 servers. We ran into some issues after upgrade because the firmware was older and the old firmware did not like the newer ESX. Our servers are also not on the compatibility list for ESX5.5 or newer so we were only able to go to 5.1.
I would recommend checking the required firmware version as well as the hardware compatibility list before performing the upgrade. Once we performed firmware upgrades everything has been solid.
Posted : August 18, 2016 6:06 am
I remember this from running ESX 4. Be Careful.
Install ESX4 on a server or test station, add one VM to it. Then do a test upgrade against that server. See if the volumes stay in tact.
The best thing you could do is get a second ESX holding server, clone the VM to it, just incase.
(you will need vcenter to do the clone)
Or you could use Veeam Backup free Edition and just drop it somewhere so you have a full copy of your VMs, as another precaution)
( https://www.veeam.com/virtual-machine-backup-solution-free.html).
Posted : August 19, 2016 3:20 am
You can also just copy the files from one server to another (powered off VM) with the scp command. No 3rd party tools or vCenter necessary. I have used this method for many years on my standalone and non vCenter enabled hosts and it worked fine every time I have tried it. You have to be patient with large files but the scp command gets the job done and it is very flexible.
Mike Zavolas
Tallahassee Neurological Clinic
Posted : August 22, 2016 4:22 am
