Two VMSphere upgrade sessions possible?

[bandersfdjhefjh]

Hello, we intend to upgrade our ESX 3.5 cluster system to VMSphere and to my understand this consists of following four phases:

1. Updare VCenter and plugins

2. Update ESX hosts

3. Update VMtools and hardware on virtual machines

4. Add licenses

Due to our specific setup the estimated upgrade time would take such long time it would be convenient to split it to two occasions so the question is whether it is possible to perform step 1 or even step 2 and have a fully functioning and backward compatible environment that can be finalized later?

[vmroyale]

Hello.

You can upgrade vCenter first and have it manage those ESX 3.5 hosts. It is a fully supported configuration. After you upgrade the ESX hosts, the VMware Tools and virtual hardware can be done or skipped. You will want to get them done eventually, and you may lose out on some of the new features without them, but you will be fine. You can drag this upgrade out quite a bit, if you choose to do so.

Good Luck!