Upgrading a vSphere Essentials Plus 5.0 infrastructure

[MariusRoma]

I need to upgrade a VMware vSphere Essentials Plus 5.0 infrastructure made of 2 ESXi 5.0 nodes and a Windows server 2008 R2 based (virtual) vCenter.

I want to update it to vSphere 5.5 U2.

Can I use the standard VMware CD to upgrade either the vCenter and the hosts or should I use Essentials plus specific CDs?

Base on what I read I on KB 2057795 I should update the vCenter first, the ESXi nodes later.

Can I directly update from 5.0 to 5.5 U2 or should i perform any intermediate task?

Is the update process I need to perfrom described anywhere?

Regards

marius

[rcporto · Accepted solution]

Can I use the standard VMware CD to upgrade either the vCenter and the hosts or should I use Essentials plus specific CDs?

There is not difference between installation media... the same ISO can be used for any edition of vSphere/vCenter.

Base on what I read I on KB 2057795 I should update the vCenter first, the ESXi nodes later.

Yes, this is the correct order, first the vCenter Server and then the vSphere ESXi hosts.

Can I directly update from 5.0 to 5.5 U2 or should i perform any intermediate task?

You can go directly to version 5.5 Update 2, but for vSphere ESXi hosts remember to check the HCL first just to ensure that your hosts supports version 5.5 Update 2.

Is the update process I need to perfrom described anywhere?

The following KB articles will guides you:

VMware KB:    Upgrading to vCenter Server 5.5 best practices

VMware KB: Installing or upgrading to ESXi 5.5 best practices