I've just updated our entire VM Infrastructure to 4.0 Update 1, it's cake as long as you have some items in place. You need VM update Manager and Hosts in DRS clusters. It took around less than 30 minutes per host Zero downtime on the cluster. As someone else explained it's very straightforward.
Update VC 1st to latest patch level you need ( I just downloaded the VC ISO and ran the install from inside an RDP to the VC VM) Use VUM to create a patch group for your hosts. Scan Hosts Remediate Hosts one by one ( the remediation takes care of it all, Maint mode reboot patches etc..) Thx! Carlos From: John Cook [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 10:47 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMware upgrade question I'd think you could download the Host Update utility (I think it's on the ESX4 ISO, just DL the whole thing and browse to the app) and do it from a standalone machine like I did with my VSphere upgrade. It'll ask you to select the host, tell it where the files are and put it in maintenance mode and kick it off. John W. Cook Systems Administrator Partnership For Strong Families 315 SE 2nd Ave Gainesville, Fl 32601 Office (352) 393-2741 x320 Cell (352) 215-6944 Fax (352) 393-2746 MCSE, MCTS, MCP+I, A+, N+, VSP4, VTSP4 From: Richard Stovall [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 10:41 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: VMware upgrade question What about moving the guests off the hosts, rebooting it from the U5 CD and running the update from there? Possibly more work, but a valid scenario, right? On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 10:37 AM, Martin Blackstone <[email protected]> wrote: I still prefer to put it into maintenance mode manually. But yes, you should use Update Manager to fly this. -----Original Message----- From: Damien Solodow [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 7:04 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: VMware upgrade question I don't know of any ESX lists like this one unfortunately. You are on the right track for the upgrade process, but it may be even simpler then you are thinking. First, upgrade vCenter like you're thinking. It's perfectly ok to have a newer vCenter managing older ESX hosts. I would suggest making a backup of the vcenter database first just in case. After vcenter is upgraded, you can use VMware Update Manager to apply Update 5 to the hosts. When you tell VUM to apply the upgrade, it will automatically put the host in maintenance mode (which because it's a DRS cluster will migrate off the guests). It will then apply the upgrade and reboot the host. Once it comes back up and re-establishes communication with vCenter it will be taken out of maintenance mode. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Leone [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, February 02, 2010 9:59 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: OT: VMware upgrade question Sorry for the OT. Actually, I have 2 questions: 1. Anyone know of a good VMware mailing list, like this one? I dislike web forums, and realize that VMware is a bit OT for this list. 2. I need to upgrade my ESX 3.5 Update 4 cluster to 3.5 update 5 (so I can use Win2008 R2 as a VM, which is supported in Update 5), and wondered if I had the upgrade procedure correct. Maybe someone could comment? My config: vCenter 2.5 Update 4, on Win2003 Standard. A 10 node ESX 3.5 Update 4 cluster, with HA and DRS, with all datastores on FC SAN (so no local storage on the ESX hosts). About 60 or so VMs. I've gone through the Upgrade Guide, and most of it seems to deal with updating from a much earlier version of ESX. Even the "Minor Upgrade" section seems a lot more complicated than my situation calls for. For example, I have no need for upgrading my datastores from VMFS v2 to v3, since my original installation was VMFS v3. So all my VMs and templates were created with v3.5 Update 4 already, and shouldn't need to be upgraded further. If I'm understanding correctly, I need to: 1. Upgrade vCenter. I download vCenter 2.5 Update 5, and just run it. I let it update my database version, if it wants to. (MS SQL Server 2005 SP3 is installed on the vCenter server). Reboot? I assume it's OK to be running a slightly later version of vCenter than what the ESX servers are running? 2. Set the ESX host into maintenance mode, so all VMs migrate off. I see something about "Relocate VM files". Do I do this, rather than migrate the VMs off that host? It doesn't seem so, since I have no local storage on my ESX hosts, only datastores from my SAN. 3. Copy the Update 5 ZIP file to the ESX host (SFTP over SSH, in my case, I believe). Unzip. 4. Execute "esxupdate update". 5. Reboot when prompted. 6. Take host out of maintenance mode, so VMs migrate back. Repeat steps 2 through 6, for each of the other 9 ESX hosts. Upgrade the VM Tools in each VM. This can be more problematic, since this requires a reboot, which requires scheduled downtime.The actual process is easy, but it's more time consuming. What am I missing, in this plan? I have some further questions, specifically about backup. I backup each VM separately (i.e., I install my Networker client, and backup each VM as if it was a physical Windows host). I am unclear as to how I back up the actual ESX host configuration. I'd really like to do that, before attempting the version upgrade. If someone could provide some guides for that, I would be eternally grateful. 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