VMware vSphere 6.5 Upgrade – Path Finder

VMware vSphere 6.5 has released last year but still many of the environments are running with vSphere 5.5 or vSphere 6.0. This article will try to provide more information about VMware vSphere 6.5 upgrade resources and other available utilities in the market to simplify the upgrade work plan and execution. This article also covers the other VMware components compatibility with vCenter 6.5 . First Let’s have look at the VMware product Interoperability matrix to check out the direct upgrade options.

Note: VMware has released vSphere 6.7 on  April 2018.

 

VMware provides the Upgrade Path:

Here is the link to check VMware Product Interoperability Matrices.

In this link , Navigate to “Upgrade Path”  and select a solution = > Select vCenter Server.   This shows that vCenter server from 5.5 U3 to vCenter server 6.70 is not possible. But where as from vCenter 5.5 U3 to 6.5u1 direct upgrade is possible. The same way, you could check for vCenter Servers that runs on your data-center.

 

 

Let’s checkout for the Hyper-visor ESXi :

 

 

Upgrade Path Finder:

VMware provides tools called path-finder to upgrade / new deployment for vCenter Server 6.5 .It provides the plan for vSphere 5.5 or vSphere 6.0 to upgrade to 6.5 by answering sequence of questions.

Here is the path finder Link to access it. https://vspherecentral.vmware.com/path-finder

Let’s quickly check out that how it works.

 

1. Access “https://vspherecentral.vmware.com/path-finder”  web page.

 

2. Choose new deployment vs Upgrade. I have chosen “Upgrade to vSphere 6.5”

 

3. Select the current version .

 

4. Select the current topology that in use .

 

5. Linked mode has been called as Enhanced Linked on vSphere 6.x.  ELM provides a mechanism to manage multiple vCenter servers through single user interface.

 

6. vCenter HA is a new feature available in vCenter 6.5 . If you select this feature , it will provide a plan to migrate the vCenter from Windows to VCSA . (vCenter Server Appliance.)

 

7.Here the visio that tool produces for the migration. We have chosen “Multiple vCenter Servers with external PSCs and Load Balancer”. In vSphere 6.5, Enhanced Linked Mode requires external PSCs. When external PSCs are paired with vCenter HA, a load balancer is required to provide high availability for the PSCs. F5, NSX, and Netscaler are the only load balancers VMware supports. LBs are required to provide HA at all layers and to eliminate any single points of failure. Also note that vCenter HA does not support repointing via cmsso-util which is why the load balancer is required. In a multisite configuration, it is recommended to provide HA configurations for each site so that a failure in a site impacts other sites as little as possible.

The following diagram depicts two vCenter Servers with vCenter HA enabled connected to a pair of PSCs in an HA configuration behind a load balancer.

 

 

8.Select if you are using Window based vCenter server or VCSA . VMware recommends to use VCSA since it has lot of feature integrated compare to Windows vCenter server. VCSA comes with simple backup /restore solutions , HA etc..

 

9. vCenter Server 6.5 provides inbuild migration tool to convert Windows vCenter to VCSA .

 

10. Here is the out of come of the vSphere 6.5 upgrade path.

Recommended Upgrade Steps to vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

Recommended Topology: vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 with an External PSC and vCenter High Availability Decisions Made:

(a) Use Enhanced Linked Mode

(b) External PSC

(c) vCenter HA will be used

(d) PSC HA with a load balancer required due to vCenter HA being used

(e) Migrate from vCenter Server on Windows 5.5 to vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

 

The steps to complete your upgrade are as follows:

(1) If using embedded SSO, deploy a new SSO 5.5 Instance on Windows. If already using external SSO, skip to step 4.

(2) Reconfigure to use external SSO (KB 2033620)

(3) Decommission the embedded SSO instances

(4) Use the 6.5 Migration Tool to migrate and upgrade the external SSO instance to a PSC

(5) Use the 6.5 Migration Tool to migrate and upgrade all vCenter Servers to vCenter Server Appliance 6.5

(6) Deploy a 2nd PSC in the same SSO Site

(7) Deploy and configure a supported load balancer

(8) Configure PSC HA

(9) Repoint each vCenter Server to the VIP

(10) Enable vCenter HA on each instance that requires it The following resources will help you plan and execute the previous steps for your vCenter Server 5.5 to vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 upgrade.

 

The same way you could also simulate for your vSphere environment upgrade using path finder.

Resources:

• Supported and deprecated topologies for VMware vSphere 6.5:

• Best practices for upgrading to vCenter 6.5

• vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Considerations Part-1

• vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Considerations Part-2

• vSphere 6.5 Upgrade Considerations Part-3

 

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