In this post, I will show how to upgrade vCenter Appliance (VCSA) 5.1 or 5.5 to 6.0.
vCenter Appliance upgrade prerequisites
There are following prerequisites to perform the upgrade of vCenter Appliance:
- ESXi hosts 5.x. If you have any ESXi 4.1 please update to version 5.x. If you choose not to upgrade, you must remove them from the vCenter Server inventory.
- At least vCenter Appliance 5.1 U3. If your current vCenter Server Appliance version is earlier than 5.1 Update 3, you must upgrade to 5.1 Update 3 or later before upgrading to vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.
Note: vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller instance is the only supported upgrade option for vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.
vCenter Appliance 6.0 upgrade process overview
The upgrade process includes:
- Export of the vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 Update 3 or 5.5.x configuration.
- Deployment of vCenter Server Appliance 6.0.
- Migration of the vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 Update 3 or 5.5.x services and configuration data to the new vCenter Server Appliance 6.0 deployment.
- Power-off of the vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 Update 3 or 5.5.x machine that you want to upgrade.
vCenter Appliance 6.0 upgrade steps
To upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 U3 or 5.5 to vCenter Appliance 6.0 please follow steps:
- Download the vCenter Server Appliance installer (.ISO) from the VMware Web site at https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/downloads.
- Mount the ISO image to the Windows virtual machine or physical server on which you want to install the Client Integration Plug-In to deploy or upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance.
- In the software installer directory, navigate to the vcsa directory and double-click VMware-ClientIntegrationPlugin-6.0.0.exe to install the plugin.
- In the software installer directory, double-click vcsa-setup.html.
- Wait up to three seconds for the browser to detect the Client Integration Plug-in and allow the plug-in to run on the browser when prompted.
- On the Home page, click Upgrade to start the vCenter Server Appliance upgrade wizard.
- Click OK to the supported upgrades pop-up.
- Accept the license agreement and click Next.
- Enter a target host and a User name and Password on the host with root access.
- Click Yes to accept the host’s certificate.
- Enter an Appliance name and Enable SSH if required. Click Next.
- Enter the vCenter Server version, FQDN, Password, vCenter SSO Port (443), ESXi host FQDN, user name, and password. Click Next.
- Select Appliance size from the drop-down list and click Next.
- Select datastore to deploy the appliance on and click Next.
- Set up temporary network. Click Next.
- Review and click Finish.
- The upgrade is being performed...The below figure shows the upgrade process (exactly the migration data) on a new vCenter Appliance (connected via VM Console).
- The upgrade should be done successfully. You can log in to the vCenter Appliance 6.0 with Web Client or Standard Client.
For information how to patch/update VCSA 6.x, please follow post here.
We will migrate everything from VC 5.5 U2 (running over win2k8r2) to VC 6.0 (would run over w2k12r2). The inventory snapshot fling is not supported for the same. What is the best way to migrate permissions, alarms, all datacenter objects including all rules set under cluster, inherited permissions etc. over to the new built vsphere VC 6.0 running on 2012r2 VM?
Hi Vinod,
In general (high level) you have 2 ways currently to perform this migration:
1st: Upgrade VC 5.5U2 to VC6 on win2k8r2. Install the second (new VC 6) on w2k12r2 and migrate databases between them.
2nd: Install the second VC (VC 5.5U2) on w2k8r2. Migrate database between them and then upgrade the VC 5.5 U2 to VC6.
As you said, the snapshot inventory does not support vCenter 6 so we are not able to use it. To migrate vCenter to a new server, you can follow here.
Hello,
That looks great. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing, hope you do not mind I use the steps for my implementation document. A link to the site will be provided. 😉
Hi Andre,
sure if the implementation document will be used internally 😉
HI I am also trying to upgrade VCSA from 5.5 to 6 in a same way but always getting an below error.
Internal error occurs during export.
Hi,
Thanks for putting this article up. Unfortunately I receive 3 errors when trying to upgrade at step 4 (connect to the source appliance).
Error1 - Internal error occurs during VMware vCenter Server Database pre-upgrade checks.
Error2 - Send upgrade log files to VMware technical support team for further assistance.
Error3 - Cannot collect component requirements. For more details check out the server logs.
Many thanks.
Hi,
you need to check upgrade logs...