You have to keep in mind that this video is in a nested environment and chances are yours is not. Where you see instruction going back to the parent vcenter of nest in wizard you are probably better off going with the esxi host that vcsa is on as as there is a stage where the vcsa will be offline and as your environment is again probably not nested means that if slow or hiccup the upgrade may fail because the virtual center environment is down. Won't harm your current VM as you can just power it back on or go to host and restore snapshot.
Hi Christopher, 100% agree as I'm using a nested setup I'am referencing the underlying vcenter due to this being a lab environment. But as you said in a production environment you would browse straight to the esxi host to perform virtual machine tasks on the vcenter vm.
Hi Mark, you don't really need to have all your vm's setup with PTR's for the upgrade. If you have added in your hosts to vcenter using DNS then yes it's a good idea to have forward and reverse entries setup for the hosts
Hi Trev, you can increase the vcpu's, ram and storage anytime to match the spec in the table. I might do a quick video on increasing the disk size of certain partitions as it can be a little tricky.
Thank you for the good video. For me it does not seem to work so well though. Step 2 at 50%, the moment where the old vcenter server gets shut down I also lose connectivity to the new vCenter. I assume this is when the new vcenter appliance takes over the name / IP of the old one. However, both IPs are unpingable. SSH also does not work. I can't even access the log files to see whats wrong. Any ideas would be appreciated. Upgrading from 6.5 to 7.0 btw.
Hi Hutzi, while both vcenter servers are on, the original vcenter is using a static IP, the destination vcenter is using a temp IP that you set during the upgrade wizard. During the process can you ping the temp IP ? Once the original vcenter gets shutdown, the original source IP gets configured on the new destination vcenter. You should be able to ping this. If not double check the network that you set for the vcenter NIC
@@sysadmintutorials You are such a cool dude for giving advice on your videos months after publishing them. Great stuff man! Appreciate your thoughts! To the actual problem and if anyone ever comes across this. The issue was the new vCenter was setup using static IP but the old one was configured using DHCP and in the moment the new vcenter wants to swap to the IP of the old vcenter it will also swap to DHCP (which of course was reserved for the MAC of the old vcenter, so it failed). How I got to know this? In a console session (using the old vcenter to console access the new one) you can toggle the console view with F1 and F2 between the default "known" vcenter screen and the actual shell. I logged into the shell and in /var/log/vmware/upgrade I found a log that said that the server was trying to apply DHCP. I was really confused but when I was looking at the old vcenter I saw it actually was configured using DHCP.... The solution was to change the old vcenter to static IP; after that the upgrade went through just like the one in the video :)
Hi Ger, you can never have too many backups :) However I have found that rolling back to a VM snapshot always works. If you can shutdown the vcenter first and then take a snapshot, it's even better.
Nice Video-Tutorial and well explained. Do you maybe have a Video-Tutorial of UPGRADING vCenter Servers 6.7 in Enhanced Linked Mode to 7.0 (or/and 8)? Would be nice. Thank you for your precious Work.
Hi Juicee, thanks for the kind words. I don't have one at this stage for enhanced linked mode, however I plan to create one with vcenter 7 to 8 upgrades
I have a vCenter managing two physical locations, London and Dublin. I want to decommission the London vCenter and create a new one in Dublin, both sites have connectivity. Can I use the upgrade facility to pull data from the London VC to the Dublin one, or, is there a way I can install a new VC in Dublin and then import the data from London?
Hi Russ, you could look at a backup and restore of vcenter. For example something along the lines of 1. backup current vcenter in London, also export VDS, also shutdown vcenter and take a snapshot (should be plenty of backups here :) 2. Deploy a new VCSA in Dublin with the 'Restore' option (make sure this VCSA is exactly the same version and build 3. Point to the backup file and let the new VCSA install and restore from backup 4. Voila, it's moved :)
Great explanation and upgrade demo. I am going to upgrade from 6.7.3 to latest 7.0.3i (VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-21477706) is that ok ? Also after upgrade vcenter will take same license automatically in your video you upgraded from 6.7.3 to 7.0.3 and vcenter came backonline and you did not change license key. Can you please confirm I can just follow same steps you mentioned that all is need it and no change or anything for license ? if anything I need to do please let me know. Thank you
Hi Kamran, thank you. Yes you can upgrade from 6.7.3 to 7.0.3, vcenter first then hosts. Make sure you check your host hardware compatibility on the VMware matrix before upgrading though just so you don't get caught out if something isn't supported. Yes you are correct, you need to upgrade your licenses to support vsphere 7
Hi there, yes you can check your existing vcpu and ram allocation on the VM and then compare it to this table: magander.se/vmware-vcenter-server-6-7-resource-requirements/
Very nice demo. Do you have one for upgrading a vSphere 6.5 or 6.7 environment with multiple vCenter servers in "Enhanced Link Mode" with each vCenter having its PSC? in Version 6.5, each vCenter had to be pointed to each own PSC.
Hi Robby, thank you. I don't have an upgrade video with multiple vcenters, but I think it will be a good video in the future. When you say each vCenter has it's own PSC, you mean it's embedded or the PSC is external ?
@@sysadmintutorials yeah, that's what I read in the documentation. I think it's good that they consolidated both appliances (VCSA & PSC) into one. Fewer appliances to manage and patch. Do you know if the 7.0 upgrade process will take both appliances and consolidate them during the upgrade or do we have to decom the PSC through a separate process? Thank you
Hi, best way to check is against the build version table on VMware/Broadcom site, you can access it here -> knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/326316/build-numbers-and-versions-of-vmware-vce.html
Hey sir, thanks so much for this information!!! I have a question. I wanted to check if I'm ok to proceed with the vCenter update from 6.7 to 7.0 in relation to the Telecom Cisco VMs? I'm not planning to upgrade the telecom hypervisors, they will stay at 6.7
Hi Beto, I'm not sure the exact versions of vcenter and esxi you are using, but what you need to do is go to the VMware Compatibility website, enter in your vcenter version and your esxi version and it will tell you if it is compatible - interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability
Hi Arun, if you want to keep the same vcenter vm name, I would rename the old one before performing the update, something along the lines of vcenter-old. Once the old vcenter has been renamed, you can then use the same vm name in the vcenter 7 migration wizard
@@sysadmintutorials i was reading articles and they say if migration fails, roll back plan is to just turn on the old vcenter thats it. Have u tried this or any clue? :)
So if i have to hop on a box to access my vcenters (it's kind of locked down), i should mount the .iso to it? gotcha. i almost assumed you deploy the .iso as a vm
Correct, you just mount the iso file in Windows and run through the upgrade which then goes through and deploys the new vcenter 7 virtual machine for you
Quick question, if the pre-checks have errors, does the entire process have to be started over, meaning starting all the way back to stage 1, or can the errors be addressed and attempt stage 2 again? Also, using a custom machine ssl pre-checks complaining it does not match the pnid of vcenter. THANKS!
Hi SCDeerAddict, yes usually you'll need to start back and it's also safer. I've had that error before and it was because the vcenter name was upper case and the ID was lower case. The fix is to edit the vcenter name to match the ID. However I logged a VMware tech support ticket to help me on that one. I would suggest also doing that.
I would turn off the failed one. Make sure you can revert to the snapshot copy of your original source vcenter, ensure it powers up and everything is ok. Once you are satisfied the original is working, you could delete the failed one and re-attempt the upgrade again.
@sysadmintutorials oh ok, I didn't think anything was changed on the source vcenter until stage 2 starts, I never started stage 2 because pre check had error, but I did take a offline snap. Thanks again
Hi Nadeem, take a snapshot of your vcenter before the update. No impact to VM's or no need to migrate vm's. Only need to migrate VM's when you are upgrading ESXi
It didn't work for me. Maybe it's because I have 2 vCenter connected with Linked vCenter Server Systems. At the end of the update I had 3 vCenters. What is the best practice in my case, remove from Linked vCenter Server Systems and re-add it after the upgrade?
@@sysadmintutorials Oh shoot.... I have no idea how to verify that or what PSC's are/or what they're used for. Edit: verified it's embedded and not managed! yay.
Hi Charles, yes you get a trial for 60 days if you don't license the vcenter. You can download vcenter from customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/7_0
@@sysadmintutorials Thanks for your reply. 👍 I have my lab on v6.7. All my licences (2 exsi and one vcenter) without expiration. I tried again with your link but as soon as I logged in, don't let me download anything from the v7 downloads section.😒
yes you'll need to upgrade your licenses to 7. Sorry here is the link to the vcenter eval customerconnect.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=vsphere-eval-7
A great explanation and demonstration! I'll be doing this sometime this month. Cheers
Thanks for the great feedback Matt. Excellent let me know if you have any questions when you do it
a vmware vid with someone i can understand, nice.
Hi cs512tr, you're welcome, glad you enjoyed it :)
You have to keep in mind that this video is in a nested environment and chances are yours is not. Where you see instruction going back to the parent vcenter of nest in wizard you are probably better off going with the esxi host that vcsa is on as as there is a stage where the vcsa will be offline and as your environment is again probably not nested means that if slow or hiccup the upgrade may fail because the virtual center environment is down. Won't harm your current VM as you can just power it back on or go to host and restore snapshot.
Hi Christopher, 100% agree as I'm using a nested setup I'am referencing the underlying vcenter due to this being a lab environment. But as you said in a production environment you would browse straight to the esxi host to perform virtual machine tasks on the vcenter vm.
Sooooooo nicely explained. Thanks
Thank you, you're welcome :)
Another tip, make sure you have PTR records in DNS created for all of the hosts/vms involved as the installer will do reverse DNS lookups.
Hi Mark, you don't really need to have all your vm's setup with PTR's for the upgrade. If you have added in your hosts to vcenter using DNS then yes it's a good idea to have forward and reverse entries setup for the hosts
@@sysadmintutorials yes sorry meant hosts
Its really great Explanation, Thanks for video
Hi Jagadish, you're welcome, thank you for the great feedback :)
This is helpful thanks
You're most welcome
Thank you for this informative video.
Hi Samir, you're welcome :)
Awesome 😄
Thank you Mohammed
Seeing the appliance sizing table has made me think one of our vCenters is near the Small limit on VMs. First job tomorrow. Thx.
Hi Trev, you can increase the vcpu's, ram and storage anytime to match the spec in the table. I might do a quick video on increasing the disk size of certain partitions as it can be a little tricky.
@@sysadmintutorials excellent
Thank you for the good video. For me it does not seem to work so well though. Step 2 at 50%, the moment where the old vcenter server gets shut down I also lose connectivity to the new vCenter. I assume this is when the new vcenter appliance takes over the name / IP of the old one. However, both IPs are unpingable. SSH also does not work. I can't even access the log files to see whats wrong. Any ideas would be appreciated. Upgrading from 6.5 to 7.0 btw.
Hi Hutzi, while both vcenter servers are on, the original vcenter is using a static IP, the destination vcenter is using a temp IP that you set during the upgrade wizard. During the process can you ping the temp IP ?
Once the original vcenter gets shutdown, the original source IP gets configured on the new destination vcenter. You should be able to ping this. If not double check the network that you set for the vcenter NIC
@@sysadmintutorials You are such a cool dude for giving advice on your videos months after publishing them. Great stuff man! Appreciate your thoughts!
To the actual problem and if anyone ever comes across this. The issue was the new vCenter was setup using static IP but the old one was configured using DHCP and in the moment the new vcenter wants to swap to the IP of the old vcenter it will also swap to DHCP (which of course was reserved for the MAC of the old vcenter, so it failed).
How I got to know this? In a console session (using the old vcenter to console access the new one) you can toggle the console view with F1 and F2 between the default "known" vcenter screen and the actual shell. I logged into the shell and in /var/log/vmware/upgrade I found a log that said that the server was trying to apply DHCP. I was really confused but when I was looking at the old vcenter I saw it actually was configured using DHCP....
The solution was to change the old vcenter to static IP; after that the upgrade went through just like the one in the video :)
DHCP will do that :) Great find and well done for sorting it out and getting that upgrade done successfully
Thank you so much guy !
Hi Ahmed, you're welcome thanks for stopping by
a great video !! so it is mean i need to upgrade the vcenter from 6.7 to vcentre 7.x first and then upgrade those esxi host from 6.7 to 7.x? thanks !!
Yes that is correct, vcenter first followed by esxi hosts
@@sysadmintutorials thank you !!
Nice tutorial. Is vCenter appliance backup necessary? Or snapshot of vcenter vm only should be enough in case of failure. Thanks.
Hi Ger, you can never have too many backups :) However I have found that rolling back to a VM snapshot always works. If you can shutdown the vcenter first and then take a snapshot, it's even better.
Thank you very much, it very nice explanation
Hi Naresh, you're welcome :)
Very nice explanation. Do you have any tutorial about how to setup "Cluster"?
Thank you Neon, I don't have one yet but I think I might put it on my list :)
Nice Video-Tutorial and well explained. Do you maybe have a Video-Tutorial of UPGRADING vCenter Servers 6.7 in Enhanced Linked Mode to 7.0 (or/and 8)? Would be nice. Thank you for your precious Work.
Hi Juicee, thanks for the kind words. I don't have one at this stage for enhanced linked mode, however I plan to create one with vcenter 7 to 8 upgrades
Thank you for this. Do the ESXi hosts need to be upgraded first?
Hi there, no you need to upgrade vcenter first
I have a vCenter managing two physical locations, London and Dublin. I want to decommission the London vCenter and create a new one in Dublin, both sites have connectivity. Can I use the upgrade facility to pull data from the London VC to the Dublin one, or, is there a way I can install a new VC in Dublin and then import the data from London?
Hi Russ, you could look at a backup and restore of vcenter. For example something along the lines of
1. backup current vcenter in London, also export VDS, also shutdown vcenter and take a snapshot (should be plenty of backups here :)
2. Deploy a new VCSA in Dublin with the 'Restore' option (make sure this VCSA is exactly the same version and build
3. Point to the backup file and let the new VCSA install and restore from backup
4. Voila, it's moved :)
@@sysadmintutorials Thank you for the reply. In the end I built a completely new vCenter in Dublin and the London one was decommissioned.
That will work :) Glad you got it all sorted
Can you use the same host name for the upgraded vcenter? We're looking to upgrade our vcenter 6.7U3 to 7.0.3
Hi Steve, yes it will keep same ip and same hostname
Thanks for the great video! Do you have one yet on doing the hosts?
Hi Ross, thank you. It's coming soon, have a busy week this week, and will look to get it finalized in 1 to 2 weeks time.
Great explanation and upgrade demo. I am going to upgrade from 6.7.3 to latest 7.0.3i (VMware-VCSA-all-7.0.3-21477706) is that ok ? Also after upgrade vcenter will take same license automatically in your video you upgraded from 6.7.3 to 7.0.3 and vcenter came backonline and you did not change license key. Can you please confirm I can just follow same steps you mentioned that all is need it and no change or anything for license ? if anything I need to do please let me know. Thank you
Hi Kamran, thank you. Yes you can upgrade from 6.7.3 to 7.0.3, vcenter first then hosts. Make sure you check your host hardware compatibility on the VMware matrix before upgrading though just so you don't get caught out if something isn't supported.
Yes you are correct, you need to upgrade your licenses to support vsphere 7
Is there a way to find out what deployment size our existing vcsa (6.7) is configured?
Hi there, yes you can check your existing vcpu and ram allocation on the VM and then compare it to this table:
magander.se/vmware-vcenter-server-6-7-resource-requirements/
Very nice demo. Do you have one for upgrading a vSphere 6.5 or 6.7 environment with multiple vCenter servers in "Enhanced Link Mode" with each vCenter having its PSC? in Version 6.5, each vCenter had to be pointed to each own PSC.
Hi Robby, thank you. I don't have an upgrade video with multiple vcenters, but I think it will be a good video in the future. When you say each vCenter has it's own PSC, you mean it's embedded or the PSC is external ?
@@sysadmintutorials external PSCs
In vCenter 7 all PSC's have to be embedded so you need to plan for this, the upgrade is to do 1 at a time. Is your environment on 6.5 or 6.7 ?
@@sysadmintutorials yeah, that's what I read in the documentation. I think it's good that they consolidated both appliances (VCSA & PSC) into one. Fewer appliances to manage and patch. Do you know if the 7.0 upgrade process will take both appliances and consolidate them during the upgrade or do we have to decom the PSC through a separate process? Thank you
6.5
Thanks for the tutorial, how long did the enitre upgrade process take?
Hi John, you're welcome, I think it took about 15-20 mins, but that's in my lab and not on the fastest disks :)
Thank you for video, I am trying to figure out if I am on 6.7U3 or lower. My current build is 6.7.0.2. Is this U2 or U1?
Hi, best way to check is against the build version table on VMware/Broadcom site, you can access it here -> knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/326316/build-numbers-and-versions-of-vmware-vce.html
@@sysadmintutorials thank you. it was build U1. I need to catch up with the upgrade, including esxi.
Hello SysAdmin, I have a doubt, I have configured a VMware Replication, if I update in one, will my replication stop working?
thank you Ricardo
Hi Jose, you will need to check the version compatibility between vcenter, esxi and vmware replication first - interopmatrix.vmware.com/
Hey sir, thanks so much for this information!!!
I have a question. I wanted to check if I'm ok to proceed with the vCenter update from 6.7 to 7.0 in relation to the Telecom Cisco VMs? I'm not planning to upgrade the telecom hypervisors, they will stay at 6.7
Hi Beto, I'm not sure the exact versions of vcenter and esxi you are using, but what you need to do is go to the VMware Compatibility website, enter in your vcenter version and your esxi version and it will tell you if it is compatible - interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability
@@sysadmintutorials You are a GOAT thanks so much!!! I will subscribe immediately!!!
Awesome Beto thanks for your support :)
this server also is needed to be added to AD, if required for other AD users to be able to log into vcsa
Hi Eamon, yes you are spot on, you can also add vCenter to AD which will be added as a computer object
What if the original vcenter name needs to be maintained? Will the upgrade proceed if i give the new vcenter vm name same as the existing ?
Hi Arun, if you want to keep the same vcenter vm name, I would rename the old one before performing the update, something along the lines of vcenter-old. Once the old vcenter has been renamed, you can then use the same vm name in the vcenter 7 migration wizard
@@sysadmintutorials yeah i did that last week and successfully migrated. Thank you!
Excellent great to hear Arun, well done
@@sysadmintutorials i was reading articles and they say if migration fails, roll back plan is to just turn on the old vcenter thats it. Have u tried this or any clue? :)
Hi Arun, yes exactly. you can just turn off the failed vcenter and turn on the old vcenter.
So if i have to hop on a box to access my vcenters (it's kind of locked down), i should mount the .iso to it? gotcha. i almost assumed you deploy the .iso as a vm
Correct, you just mount the iso file in Windows and run through the upgrade which then goes through and deploys the new vcenter 7 virtual machine for you
Nice vid as per usual. Watched , even though I prefer proxmox.
Thank you Nidaren
Quick question, if the pre-checks have errors, does the entire process have to be started over, meaning starting all the way back to stage 1, or can the errors be addressed and attempt stage 2 again? Also, using a custom machine ssl pre-checks complaining it does not match the pnid of vcenter. THANKS!
Hi SCDeerAddict, yes usually you'll need to start back and it's also safer. I've had that error before and it was because the vcenter name was upper case and the ID was lower case. The fix is to edit the vcenter name to match the ID. However I logged a VMware tech support ticket to help me on that one. I would suggest also doing that.
@@sysadmintutorials Thanks for the reply, so I just cancel and manually delete the deployed appliance from stage 1?
I would turn off the failed one. Make sure you can revert to the snapshot copy of your original source vcenter, ensure it powers up and everything is ok. Once you are satisfied the original is working, you could delete the failed one and re-attempt the upgrade again.
@sysadmintutorials oh ok, I didn't think anything was changed on the source vcenter until stage 2 starts, I never started stage 2 because pre check had error, but I did take a offline snap. Thanks again
A silly question...Will the vsphere 6.5 or 6.7 licences get auto renewed post upgrade to 7.0?
And can we upgrade vcenter 6.5u3 to 7.0u3 directly?
Hi there, unfortunately not, you'll need to convert your original licenses to vsphere 7 which can be done in the myvmware.com portal
ok, but please: is it possibile to upgrade the VCSA from 6.7 to 7 via VAMI interface?
Hi Talassio, you can't use VAMI for upgrading between major versions as a new appliance needs to be deployed
@@sysadmintutorials thanks :)
i will upgrade vCneter, if impact in VM's and required VM's migrate?
Hi Nadeem, take a snapshot of your vcenter before the update. No impact to VM's or no need to migrate vm's. Only need to migrate VM's when you are upgrading ESXi
Hi sir windows administrator and vsphere 3years experience resume some reviews
It didn't work for me. Maybe it's because I have 2 vCenter connected with Linked vCenter Server Systems. At the end of the update I had 3 vCenters. What is the best practice in my case, remove from Linked vCenter Server Systems and re-add it after the upgrade?
Hi Goncalo, by any chance is your 6.7 deployment using external PSC's ?
Wait... if my vcenters are linked it won’t work?
Hi Sickling, if they are linked you can run the upgrade. However you need to make sure that the PSC's are internal and not external
@@sysadmintutorials Oh shoot.... I have no idea how to verify that or what PSC's are/or what they're used for.
Edit: verified it's embedded and not managed! yay.
Awesome, it's much easier with embedded :)
Where is the v7 now? I only saw a trial version for 60 days :(
Hi Charles, yes you get a trial for 60 days if you don't license the vcenter. You can download vcenter from customerconnect.vmware.com/en/downloads/info/slug/datacenter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/7_0
@@sysadmintutorials Thanks for your reply. 👍 I have my lab on v6.7. All my licences (2 exsi and one vcenter) without expiration. I tried again with your link but as soon as I logged in, don't let me download anything from the v7 downloads section.😒
yes you'll need to upgrade your licenses to 7. Sorry here is the link to the vcenter eval customerconnect.vmware.com/en/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=vsphere-eval-7
@@sysadmintutorials Thanks
respond to you all in 1 month to see how tNice tutorialngs have evolved if I rember or if soone is interested. My failure is just that - mine. But I
Hi Robert, ok sounds good