migrating from 5.1 to 5.5 on new hardware

hello all.

seeking advice on the options available to migrate from a hp chassis using a mixture of diff generation blades to a new chassis running gen 8 blades with a new Vcenter 5.5 install. storage is also different. moving from dell eql to NetApp. obvious concerns are switch configurations and minimizing downtime.

help greatly appreciated !

thanks in anticipation

dave