First of all thanks for the video and it saves my day. I have one quick question, it's not supported in-place upgrade right. Do I need to create another vCenter VM instance before the upgrade taking place? please explain
Thanks for the video, it is very detailed one. Quick question, what about when you upgrade v6.5 with ext. PSCs to 6.7 ? We need to start with PSCs first right ?
Hi Gunay, you're welcome, glad you enjoyed it. Yes you will want to upgrade the PSC's first. However if you are running external PSC's I would be looking to combine them to internal as there are no more external psc's moving forward. Please also make sure you read the VMware upgrade guide to see if there is anything else you need to do according to your environment. This is just as a pre-caution since I only covered the upgrade for an internal PSC here.
Hi Benedict, yes you can use powercli - there's a great article here explaining you how to do it - www.altaro.com/vmware/powercli-distributed-switches/
Followed your tutorial to upgrade. Now I've 2 vcsa (one is the source and other is the new created during upgrade). What should be next approach? Do I have to delete source and carry on with new?
Hi Manoj, the original source should be shutdown now and you should be operating off the new vcenter vm. I usually leave the original source for a few days and then delete it.
Hi, thanks for the video. I have a query , hope you can help. Currently i am having an VC 6.5 with external PSC with GA version. I want to update it to 6.5 U1g . Can i upgrade directly from GA to U1g. Or do I need to update it first to update1. Kindly suggest.
Hi OurWorld, looking at the VMware compatibility matrix you can definately upgrade from VC 6.5 to VC 6.5 U1. However I would read the release notes of the U1g release, this should tell you if you can go straight to U1g or need to perform a previous upgrade first. It will also tell you if you have any pre-reqs with your ESXi hosts.
Hi Ruben, I would recommend you have a read of these 2 articles from VMware: docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-30485437-B107-42EC-A0A8-A03334CFC825.html kb.vmware.com/s/article/60229 Before you make any changes make sure you have snapshot backups of the vcenter and psc's and if you can config backups as well
Hi Daniel, The address that you are referring to is the current vcenter or esxi host where the source vcenter resides. I'm running this as a nested lab (vsphere within vsphere). vmvcenter is the vcenter server where my vcenter 6.5 vm resides. Hope this makes sense ?
Great video but just didnt understand 1 thing. when u snapshoted the vc server at the begining and turned it off, how the vc didnt shut down? How could you just power it on immediately after?
Hi Billerin, sorry I'm not sure what you mean, the vcenter server shutdown gracefully and then once it was powered off I took a snapshot. Once I saw that the snapshot was complete, I manually powered the server back on again.
The vcenter in the video is nested, meaning it is running within another vsphere environment. So from the base vsphere environment I took a snapshot of this vcenter.
I think it worth to mention that if vcenter password is expired you'll get in trouble. So the solution is to renew the root password or to make sure that it is not expired before upgrade.
Hi Zdiox1, there is a catch 22 here, the expiry kind of forces you to change the password, however it's a real pain. You are right though, for lab purposes I usually always untick password expiry and yes it is good to check that it isn't expired before running the upgrade.
Hi Christopher, I believe it does however I haven't tested it. I did read that a few people had some issues with smart cards and earlier versions of vcenter 6.7, so make sure you are on the latest release
@@sysadmintutorials We are going from 6.5 to 6.7 because ESXi 6.5 hosts cannot join the domain. We have SMBv1 disabled on everything and guess what, when ESXi 6.5 host initially communicates to the domain controller, it does it via SMBv1, so our DC rejects the communication. We tested out ESXi 6.7 with WireShark and it uses SMBv2. So that is why we are upgrading.
Hi, I've come back to this vid to upgrade my vCenter before performing ESXi upgrade. I got to the connect to source appliance stage but can't get credentials to work. I've got 1 ESXi host which hosts my vCenter server. I've tried SSO user along with root user creds and for the second set of creds tried root of ESXi host root creds and also tried vCenter SSO user creds but doesn't accept any. The log says "Failed to authenticate with the guest operating system using the supplied credentials." even though I use the same root username and password used to log in to the web interface to access the backup option earlier. Help!
@@sysadmintutorials In the first credential box I use administrator@vsphere.local (SSO creds of vCenter server VM running on ESXi physical host) and root (root of vCenter server running on ESXi physical host), and in the second section I've tried root (root of physical ESXi box which hosts the vCenter VM) with no luck so tried administrator@vsphere.local in the 2nd section still no luck. I know the credentials are correct because I used them all to log on to the various web interfaces.
Great video but suffers from the same flaws that all tutorial videos have. Only the basics covered which doesn't apply to the majority. External PSC?? Same installer or a separate ISO?? What about Rollback if you have a failed install? Is the original appliance gone after stage 2? It looks like it, so how does that work? Did the vDS get upgraded as well, you didn't show us that result, or is it a separate upgrade like I've read. an no other vids on your channel explain these things. To me this was only a small help. I love how vmware recommended and pushed everyone to this sprawled out pointless external PSC architecture (which i hated to begin with) only to get everyone back to embedded. Then leaving their customers who were good and who did follow recommendations with no content on how to upgrade their environments.
Hi Tony, thanks for your comment and feedback. Reading through this it seems like your frustration is more around the changes that VMware have made regarding embedded and external PSC's. This video addresses one upgrade scenario which in this case happens to be for embedded PSC's. As I mentioned in the video you need to read the release notes and upgrade guide thoroughly, the guides cover upgrading if you are using an external PSC 2:10 There is only one installer ISO and I show you where this is in the video 6:55 To answer your question, if you have a failed install at phase 1 you don't really need to do much except delete the newly created 6.7 vcsa, if you have a failed install at phase 2 and the original vcsa is turned off, you can simply turn off your new vcsa and turn on the original. I've also showed you in the video how to take a vcsa snapshot and backup the config. The original appliance is not deleted after phase 2. I usually keep the original around for a few days and then delete it. If you are using a VDS, then after the upgrade is complete you will need to right click on the VDS and select upgrade. Because it sounds like you are in the situation of trying to upgrade your vsphere environment with external PSC's, what I would recommend is that you build this out in a lab and simulate all the steps before upgrading your production. That way you can iron out any issues before.
Guys, after upgrading to VCenter 6.7U3, when I try to start a newly created VM I get this error "The total number of virtual CPUs present or requested in virtual machines' configuration has exceeded the limit on the host: 0.". The only way I managed to start those machines is to login on the hypervisor they reside on and start from there. Could anybody point me what could be the problem ? I don't have DRS enabled, I have no license for it.
@@sysadmintutorials Hi, there are three ESXi hosts managed by Vcenter. Two hosts share the same MSA storage, via FC, also I have configured HA for these two ESXi hosts. Also one of these two hosts has been upgraded from Vsphere 6.5 to 6.7 and after i've detected the issue I decided to wait with upgrading of the second ESXi. The third ESXi host has it's own local storage, it's not connected to the FC storage and it's not membed of HA. I hope the topology is clear, let me know if it's not.
Have a look here, scroll down to where he says: 'vSphere 6.5 DRS has introduced additional option to set maximum CPU over-commitment' www.vcdx200.com/2018/01/vsphere-65-drs-cpu-over-commitment.html Looks like you need to change your CPU overcommit settings
@@sysadmintutorials Hi, i don't know your name, so I'll say thank you very much sysadmintutorials for trying to help me :). I've seen exactly the same link you've sent and it helped me. Initially I was sure that this link will not help me as I don't have DRS license on my cluster and Vcenter doesn't allow me to enable this feature, but I've found a way. I've clicked on enable DRS, I changed parameters as in that link, after that I clicked to disable DRS and after that I clicked OK. So, it allowed me to change DRS settings without enabling it. I think it's a bug, but I don't have support from them to report it.
videos are great. No stupid long intro's. Just straight into the meat n potatoes!! Much love UK!
Hi Scott, thanks for the great feedback :) You're welcome
Hello, could you put video on upgrading vCenter 6.5(VCSA) to vcenter 6.7(VCSA) with an external platform service controller.
Excellent Video, well explained, very detailed. Many Thanks
Hi Gilberto, thanks for the nice feedback, you're most welcome
Excellent and very clear in the explanation
Exactly what I’ve been looking for! Thankyou
Awesome thanks for the feedback
Excellent tutorial
Thank you Edward, glad you enjoyed it
Great tutorial! Thanks for the guidance.
Thank you Jubei612, you're welcome
Thanks for the help video.
Hi there, you're welcome Iqbal
Great Video ! Very usefull ! Thank you
Thank you Marc you're welcome
very nice! i love your tutorials.
Hi Marcel, thank you
First of all thanks for the video and it saves my day. I have one quick question, it's not supported in-place upgrade right. Do I need to create another vCenter VM instance before the upgrade taking place? please explain
Hi there, the installer will take care of all this for you. It will create the VM and migrate all the info across.
Thanks for the video, it is very detailed one. Quick question, what about when you upgrade v6.5 with ext. PSCs to 6.7 ? We need to start with PSCs first right ?
Hi Gunay, you're welcome, glad you enjoyed it. Yes you will want to upgrade the PSC's first. However if you are running external PSC's I would be looking to combine them to internal as there are no more external psc's moving forward. Please also make sure you read the VMware upgrade guide to see if there is anything else you need to do according to your environment. This is just as a pre-caution since I only covered the upgrade for an internal PSC here.
Thank you very much for the vid.
Hi Dominik, you're welcome thanks for stopping by :)
Great video... just completed upgraded to Vcenter 6.7 just b4 the deadline for Flash decomm. May I know if you have put up upgrade for 6.7 to 7?
Hi Bob, that's excellent, well done. I'm currently working on that video :)
Great tutorial.
Thank you Guillermo
Very Nice..
Thank you Rahul, glad you like it.. And thanks for subscribing :)
Thank you
VERY GOOD WORK
Thank you Eslam, more videos coming soon
Your backups happen faster than mine!
haha I accelerate the video during long wait times :)
Hello there, with the adobe flash gone, is there any way where you can backup the distributed switches before the upgrade?
Hi Benedict, yes you can use powercli - there's a great article here explaining you how to do it - www.altaro.com/vmware/powercli-distributed-switches/
Followed your tutorial to upgrade. Now I've 2 vcsa (one is the source and other is the new created during upgrade). What should be next approach? Do I have to delete source and carry on with new?
Hi Manoj, the original source should be shutdown now and you should be operating off the new vcenter vm. I usually leave the original source for a few days and then delete it.
@@sysadmintutorials Thanks
Hi, thanks for the video. I have a query , hope you can help. Currently i am having an VC 6.5 with external PSC with GA version. I want to update it to 6.5 U1g . Can i upgrade directly from GA to U1g. Or do I need to update it first to update1. Kindly suggest.
Hi OurWorld, looking at the VMware compatibility matrix you can definately upgrade from VC 6.5 to VC 6.5 U1. However I would read the release notes of the U1g release, this should tell you if you can go straight to U1g or need to perform a previous upgrade first. It will also tell you if you have any pre-reqs with your ESXi hosts.
well done, ty
If upgrading a vCenter 6.5 to 6.7 that is in ELM with another and both are using external PSCs, do you have to do both external PSCs first?
Hi Ruben, I would recommend you have a read of these 2 articles from VMware:
docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.7/com.vmware.vcenter.upgrade.doc/GUID-30485437-B107-42EC-A0A8-A03334CFC825.html
kb.vmware.com/s/article/60229
Before you make any changes make sure you have snapshot backups of the vcenter and psc's and if you can config backups as well
@ 8:52 - can you explain what the 2nd set of IP is? (where you enter vmvcenter.vmlab.local) - it's not clear
Hi Daniel, The address that you are referring to is the current vcenter or esxi host where the source vcenter resides. I'm running this as a nested lab (vsphere within vsphere). vmvcenter is the vcenter server where my vcenter 6.5 vm resides. Hope this makes sense ?
Great video but just didnt understand 1 thing. when u snapshoted the vc server at the begining and turned it off, how the vc didnt shut down? How could you just power it on immediately after?
Hi Billerin, sorry I'm not sure what you mean, the vcenter server shutdown gracefully and then once it was powered off I took a snapshot. Once I saw that the snapshot was complete, I manually powered the server back on again.
@@sysadmintutorials But how could you take a snapshot via the VCenter while the VCenter server was down?
The vcenter in the video is nested, meaning it is running within another vsphere environment. So from the base vsphere environment I took a snapshot of this vcenter.
@@sysadmintutorials so where are the vcenter files located at?
on the base vsphere datastores
I think it worth to mention that if vcenter password is expired you'll get in trouble. So the solution is to renew the root password or to make sure that it is not expired before upgrade.
Hi Zdiox1, there is a catch 22 here, the expiry kind of forces you to change the password, however it's a real pain. You are right though, for lab purposes I usually always untick password expiry and yes it is good to check that it isn't expired before running the upgrade.
Can u provide the troubleshooting concepts of VMware?
Hi Giridhar, what troubleshooting do you need exactly ?
Datastore inactive in vsphere client please suggest me what to do for this kind of issues
Hi, We use smart card login for our 6.5 VCSA, will it copy the PIM file over and the rest of the info so smart cards work on 6.7 VCSA?
Hi Christopher, I believe it does however I haven't tested it. I did read that a few people had some issues with smart cards and earlier versions of vcenter 6.7, so make sure you are on the latest release
@@sysadmintutorials We are going from 6.5 to 6.7 because ESXi 6.5 hosts cannot join the domain. We have SMBv1 disabled on everything and guess what, when ESXi 6.5 host initially communicates to the domain controller, it does it via SMBv1, so our DC rejects the communication. We tested out ESXi 6.7 with WireShark and it uses SMBv2. So that is why we are upgrading.
Thanks......
Hi,
I've come back to this vid to upgrade my vCenter before performing ESXi upgrade. I got to the connect to source appliance stage but can't get credentials to work. I've got 1 ESXi host which hosts my vCenter server. I've tried SSO user along with root user creds and for the second set of creds tried root of ESXi host root creds and also tried vCenter SSO user creds but doesn't accept any. The log says "Failed to authenticate with the guest operating system using the supplied credentials." even though I use the same root username and password used to log in to the web interface to access the backup option earlier. Help!
Hi which combination of username are you using vsphere.local\administrator or administrator@vsphere.local ?
@@sysadmintutorials In the first credential box I use administrator@vsphere.local (SSO creds of vCenter server VM running on ESXi physical host) and root (root of vCenter server running on ESXi physical host), and in the second section I've tried root (root of physical ESXi box which hosts the vCenter VM) with no luck so tried administrator@vsphere.local in the 2nd section still no luck.
I know the credentials are correct because I used them all to log on to the various web interfaces.
Check and make sure that the root password has not expired. @@techmidas
Great video but suffers from the same flaws that all tutorial videos have. Only the basics covered which doesn't apply to the majority. External PSC?? Same installer or a separate ISO??
What about Rollback if you have a failed install? Is the original appliance gone after stage 2? It looks like it, so how does that work? Did the vDS get upgraded as well, you didn't show us that result, or is it a separate upgrade like I've read. an no other vids on your channel explain these things. To me this was only a small help.
I love how vmware recommended and pushed everyone to this sprawled out pointless external PSC architecture (which i hated to begin with) only to get everyone back to embedded. Then leaving their customers who were good and who did follow recommendations with no content on how to upgrade their environments.
Hi Tony, thanks for your comment and feedback. Reading through this it seems like your frustration is more around the changes that VMware have made regarding embedded and external PSC's. This video addresses one upgrade scenario which in this case happens to be for embedded PSC's.
As I mentioned in the video you need to read the release notes and upgrade guide thoroughly, the guides cover upgrading if you are using an external PSC 2:10
There is only one installer ISO and I show you where this is in the video 6:55
To answer your question, if you have a failed install at phase 1 you don't really need to do much except delete the newly created 6.7 vcsa, if you have a failed install at phase 2 and the original vcsa is turned off, you can simply turn off your new vcsa and turn on the original. I've also showed you in the video how to take a vcsa snapshot and backup the config.
The original appliance is not deleted after phase 2. I usually keep the original around for a few days and then delete it.
If you are using a VDS, then after the upgrade is complete you will need to right click on the VDS and select upgrade.
Because it sounds like you are in the situation of trying to upgrade your vsphere environment with external PSC's, what I would recommend is that you build this out in a lab and simulate all the steps before upgrading your production. That way you can iron out any issues before.
Guys, after upgrading to VCenter 6.7U3, when I try to start a newly created VM I get this error "The total number of virtual CPUs present or requested in virtual machines' configuration has exceeded the limit on the host: 0.". The only way I managed to start those machines is to login on the hypervisor they reside on and start from there. Could anybody point me what could be the problem ? I don't have DRS enabled, I have no license for it.
Hi Zdiox, do you have a cluster of esxi hosts setup or is it only 1 esxi host within vcenter ?
@@sysadmintutorials Hi, there are three ESXi hosts managed by Vcenter.
Two hosts share the same MSA storage, via FC, also I have configured HA for these two ESXi hosts. Also one of these two hosts has been upgraded from Vsphere 6.5 to 6.7 and after i've detected the issue I decided to wait with upgrading of the second ESXi.
The third ESXi host has it's own local storage, it's not connected to the FC storage and it's not membed of HA. I hope the topology is clear, let me know if it's not.
Have a look here, scroll down to where he says:
'vSphere 6.5 DRS has introduced additional option to set maximum CPU over-commitment' www.vcdx200.com/2018/01/vsphere-65-drs-cpu-over-commitment.html
Looks like you need to change your CPU overcommit settings
@@sysadmintutorials Hi, i don't know your name, so I'll say thank you very much sysadmintutorials for trying to help me :). I've seen exactly the same link you've sent and it helped me. Initially I was sure that this link will not help me as I don't have DRS license on my cluster and Vcenter doesn't allow me to enable this feature, but I've found a way. I've clicked on enable DRS, I changed parameters as in that link, after that I clicked to disable DRS and after that I clicked OK. So, it allowed me to change DRS settings without enabling it. I think it's a bug, but I don't have support from them to report it.
Excellent, yeah that seems weird especially if DRS is not enabled in the first place it should allow more than 1:1 ratio.
In 6.5 you cant take snapshot after shutdown os
im get error : cant snapshot in current state
Hi Dmitry, are you logging into esxi to take a snapshot of the vcenter server ?
@@sysadmintutorials Looged into esxi host .
just maked snapshot on working VM
ok excellent :)
thank you
You're welcome Riady