Migrating from ESX 3.5 to ESXi 4.x

[gregb_ka6max]

I have VMware 2 data centers, each located in a separate data center. The disaster recovery data center is located 5 miles away from the procuction data center.

The Prod data center has:

vCenter 3 running on Dell PE 1950 III

vhostA (ESX 3.5) on Dell PE 2950 III (5 VMs)

vhostB (ESX 3.5) on Dell PE 2950 III (5 VMs)

vhostC (ESX 3.5) on Dell PE 2950 III (5 VMs)

The DR data center has:

vCenter 3 running on Dell PE 1950 III

vhostD (ESX 3.5) on Dell PE 2950 III (6 VMs)

vhostE (ESX 3.5) on Dell PE 2950 III (6 VMs)

My plan vmotion all of the VMs off vhostA onto vhostB and vhostC, then increase the RAM and local disk (for VMFS swap area), add a 4-port Intel NIC, and clean install ESXi 4.x on vhostA.

I plan on doing the same thing to vhostB and vhostC.

Should I upgrade the vCenter to version 4 (or vSphere if it is called that) first?

Will I have any problems vmotioning the VMs from vhostB (ESX 3.5) back to vhostA after ESXi 4.x is installed on it?

I understand that vCenter can no longer be run on a server which is also acting as a Windows domain controller. My plan is to clean install Windows 2008 64bit Standard for vCenter, which will overwrite/erase the existing vCenter 3, which is currently Windows 2003 32bit Standard, and acting as a PDC. Does this limitation still exist about Windows domain controllers and AD? If so, then I need to also buy new hardware to be Windows domain controllers.

Thanks,

Greg

[golddiggie]

ALWAYS update the vCenter Server first...

I would set up the vCenter Server as a VM, not as a physical box... With only three hosts in each DC, there's absolutely NO reason to keep the vCenter Server physical. Actually, there's plenty of benefits from making it virtual... Not the least of which means you only need to uninstall vCenter from your PDC and then leave it alone... I would advise creating a new AD DC as a VM in the near future. This also makes far more sense than leaving it as a physical asset/box...

I would also use a SQL 2005 (or 2008) server for the db for the vCenter servers... Far better than using SQL Express...

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[BDMcGrewVM]

golddiggie is 100% correct in his anwer! That's the way I'd do it.

The one thing you didn't mention is whether or not you have shared storage between the servers? Of course you mentioned vMotion so we assume you have shared storage, but never know If you don't, something as simple as iSCSI will do.

-brian

[gregb_ka6max]

Thank you both for your answers. I am using shared iSCSI storage, and it is working well for me.

I plan on creating the vCenter server as a VM, it will save me some money! I am not as confident about the Windows domain controllers, to I will keep the DCs running on physical hardware.

Can you tell me whether the vmotion of VMs went smoothly from ESX servers to the newly installed 4.x servers?

[BDMcGrewVM]

I have been very lucky with my upgrades and chages, as I work in a production environment with no lab to speak of and usually do my upgrades on a spur of the moment with little planning (hey, it's a small company).

I have two IBM x3400 servers both with 24GB of RAM and no local disk space. I boot ESXi from a flash drive. Both servers are connected to an IBM DS3200 iSCSI SAN with teratons of disk space. When I did my upgrade, I used vMotion to move all the VM's from ServerA onto ServerB. I should note that just for academic purposes, I shut down the non-critical machines, just to keep the load down.

My vCenter server is a VM running in Windows Server 2003. I shut it down, snapped it and upgraded vCenter. I'm using SQL 2005.

Booted ServerA with the ESXi 4 CD (with IBM add-ons) and installed to a new flash drive. Brought that server up, used vMotion to bring all the machines from ServerB back to ServerA and did the same on ServerB. When done I used vMotion to balance out the load and walked away from it.

Both of my domain controllers are VM's. One DC is on each server. I keep a third domain controller running as a VM in VMware Fusion on my Mac just in case both servers should happen to go down at the same time.

It's a pretty simple upgrade.

[gregb_ka6max]

My revised plan is:

1) Add a new VM on vhostB for vCenter 4. It will have a Windows 2008 64bit Standard guest OS.

2) Install vCenter 4 on the new VM on vhostB (using temporary license?)

3) Migrate the vCenter 3 license info to the new vCenter 4.

4) Uninstall the original vCenter 3 on hardware, migrate the vCenter license to the vCenter 4 VM on vhostB.

5) After upgrading the vhostA hardware, and installing ESX 4.x,

6) vmotion all VMs from vhostB (ESX 3.5), including the new vCenter 4 VM, to vhostA (ESXi 4.x).

7) Upgrade the vhostB hardware, install ESXi 4.x

😎 vmotion all VMs from vhostC (EXS 3.5) to vhost B (ESXi 4.x).

9) Upgrade the vhostC hardware, install ESXi 4.x

and lastly, vmotion some VMs from vhostA and vhostB onto vhostC to distribute the load.

How does this sound?

[BDMcGrewVM]

Sounds like a plan to me...

I'll note that I have not tried vCenter Server in Windows 2008 or a 64-bit environemnt. I can't not vouch for the compatability or functionality of the system. I'm using vCenter4 in Windows 2003 Standard Edition 32-bit.

-brian

[golddiggie · Accepted solution]

You'll need to keep the old vCenter online to use it's license server while going through the upgrade process. The vCenter 4 Server will use that old vCenter license to allow you to administrate the ESX 3.5 hosts during the process. You should have a new vCenter, as well as vSphere/ESX/ESXi 4.x licneses available to you on your account page.

Keeping the old while using the new should be fine (which edition of vCenter Server are you licensed for?)...

I would pull all the 3.5 hosts into the vCenter 4 Server configuration at the start of the process, then migrate VM's from one host at a time as you upgrade the host (as you pretty much outlined)... I would balance the VM's across the two hosts not being upgraded at each step. That way, you 'spread the load' across them. Then repeat in the other environment...

You can also opt to have the two vCenter Servers linked, allowing you to manage both from the same login... Provided you have the correct edition...

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