Hi there,
I'm working on planning out an upgrade path to get our current vCenter server upgraded to the latest 5.5 release. The vCenter server manages 24 physical hosts running ESXi 5.1 (appox 500 VMs operating)
I've not kept up to speed on finer points of the latest features with the 5.5 releases, but from what I can gather the latest generally available release of the VCSA would be capable of managing the above resources.
I'm unsure of what would be the best path to upgrade, without causing major disruption to those using VM's on the virtual infrastructure. We do not use distributed vSwitches, or HA, so this reduces the complexity of the setup / migration.
I'm investigating the theory of building a clean VCSA server, disconnect ESXi hosts 1-by-1 from vCentre and simply re-connecting into VCSA. (rebuilding resource groups, etc as part of the process)
Ignoring the reporting/audit history, I'm trying to determine is this an accepted upgrade route?
My inital thoughts would be that the licence server could be a problem, I'm not sure if the operation of two licence servers is possible, whilst transitioning the hosts from vCentre over to VCSA? It may not be best practise, but is it actually possible to operate to licence servers whilst transitioning from one to the other?
From a storage perspective; as a fiber channell SAN user, is there any issues around having 5.5 servers using the same storage luns, as used by 5.1 hosts? (vmfs 3.31). Ideally I would prefer to have new VMFS's for the 5.5 servers, but I'm seeking to focus on sorting out the management server upgrade firstly.
If anyone has been down this route previously, I'd be keen to learn from your experiences in doing this.
Thanks in advance