Upgrade from 6.7 to 7 on Dell server

[DrorAmbar]

Hello everyone,

We have a standalone Dell PowerEdge server that was purchased from Dell with custom image ESXi 6.7 on it.

We want to upgrade it to ESXi 7.

My CIO wants to take this opportunity and move away from the Dell's custom image to a standard ESXi installation.

Is there a best practice or are there any recommendations on how to perform this task successfully that will allow me to keep the current guests without having to recreate them?

Thanks!

[Kahonu84]

Wow, I'm completely oblivious to the logic of this decision. The Dell image has drivers specific to Dell. Why in god's name would you want to move away from that??

[DrorAmbar]

As I mentioned in my original post, my CIO wants it and that is a discussion for another time 🙂

[IRIX201110141]

I install and uprade >100 PowerEdge  per year and cant say something wrong about the Dell Custom ISO. Compared to others Dell doesnt modified or add unwanted stuff that much. They even havent added the OpenManage Server Administrator which can really usefull.
We never have a problem with VMware Support when it comes to using a non VMware ISO.

But to answer your Question... just use the VMware ISO when performing the upgrade or the VMware offline Bundle combined with the esxcli software vib install .... command.

Regards,
Joerg

[maksym007]

Even  if you open an SR to VMware they will give you a million reasons why you should still use Custom Image

[DrorAmbar]

Thank you everyone. I appreciate your feedback.

Kudos to you all!