Steps to replace current vCenter 4.1 server?

[Titans99]

Hi, I have vCenter 4.1 running on a physical Windows 2008 R2 server with MS SQL 2008 R2 Express database.  Apparently this database was/is not supported for 4.1 and the vCenter 5.1 upgrade installer will not let me upgrade because it says I am running an unsupported database.  Basically it tells me I need to uninstall the database and start from scratch which is where I need assistance.

Can I just follow these steps to replace the current vCenter server?

1. Disable HA on the ESX 4.1 hosts
2. Remove hosts from vCenter. I only have 3 hosts but they are production, so I assume the networking and shared storage will not be affected.
3. Uninstall vCenter 4.1 from physical server
4. Drop current SQL Express databases (I don't need the history)
5. Install vCenter 5.1
6. Add ESX 4.1 hosts to vCenter 5.1

I even thought about using the Appliance, but not sold on it.  In the next couple of months I will be replacing the current 4.1 (update 1) hosts with four new ESXi 5.1 hosts, so there will be no need to upgrade the current hosts.  I plan to introduce the new 5.1 hosts to the cluster -> vMotion the VM's over from the 4.1 hosts -> then decomission them.  Thank you.

[sparrowangelste]

those steps look good especially if you dont need to preserve history.

you should be able to skip step 2 also and just add the hosts to the new vcenter.

[Titans99]

Thanks for the response.  I forgot to mention that I need to change the IP of the ESX hosts console as well.  Do you (or anyone else) know if the following steps will suffice?

1. Remove hosts from 4.1 cluster
2. On hosts run:  esxcfg-vswif -i 10.1.x.x -n 255.255.255.0 vswif0
3. edit /etc/hosts
4. edit /etc/vmware/esx.conf
5. edit /etc/sysconfig/network
6. edit /etc/resolv.conf
7. service network restart
8. Add hosts to new 5.1 vCenter

Thanks again.