The document summarizes a company's experience migrating from vSphere 4.1 to 5.0. Key aspects of the migration included upgrading ESXi and vCenter licenses, performing a new vCenter installation with vCenter Heartbeat for high availability, migrating VMs between ESXi hosts using a "shuttle" host, and implementing post-migration tasks like applying updates and permissions. The migration addressed challenges like multiple environments and sites, production uptime needs, and ensuring a highly available vCenter.

1. OUR VSPHERE 4.1 TO 5.0
MIGRATION EXPERIENCE
By
Mike Armstrong
&
David Annett

2. Agenda
– New vSphere 5 Features
– Pre Upgrade Considerations
– Our Upgrade Challenges and Design
– Upgrade & Migration Tasks
– Post Migration Tasks
– Q&A

3. New vSphere 5 Features
– ESXi Only! Firewall added, new deployment options, can run in memory
– Improved Deployment with Image Builder and Auto Deploy
– Increased VM Maximums, 32vCPU’s and 1TB Ram, more guest OS supported
– VMFS 5, max size of 64TB, 1MB block size, 100,000 files limit
– Storage DRS, create datastore clusters and balance based on used space and
latency
– Network Improvements, port mirroring, NetFlow collection, QoS for user
defined traffic
– vCenter Appliance and Storage Appliance (VSA), designed for SMB market
– New Licensing, base on vRAM

4. Pre-Upgrade Considerations
– Upgrade ESXi and vCenter licenses on VMware License Portal, need to
apply licenses after upgrade or install
– Select to upgrade or perform new install
– Consider high availability options for vCenter and database, physical or
virtual
– Document environment and permissions, can use Power CLI script
get-vipermission -entity (get-inventory)
– Perform a health check on the environment and resolve any issues prior
to upgrade
– Verify there is sufficient SAN storage to create new LUN’s with VMFS5
version
– Consider options to upgrade guest VM Tools, Hardware versions
(Update Manager) and vSphere client

5. Upgrade Challenges and Design
Issues-
– Multiple versions, datacenters at 3 physical sites
– Many production VM’s , 7 x 24 operation, limited maintenance time
– Mix of new and old environments, little documentation on installation
– Considerable use of VDS in all the datacenters
– vShield Zones was previously installed on several ESX hosts
– vCenter and the database server, both virtual, had experienced multiple
failures, VMware support recommended new install

6. Upgrade Challenges and Design contd.
Goals-
– Make vCenter highly available
– Do clean install whenever possible, ESXi hosts, storage LUN’s
– Create new access permissions to vCenter
– Document the design and installation procedures
– Limit the downtime of VM’s during the migration

7. Upgrade Challenges and Design contd.
Upgrade details-
– Created a separate Management Cluster with four ESXi 5.0 hosts
– New installation of vCenter 5.0 as a VM
– Implemented vCenter Heartbeat, 2 VM’s on separate SAN storage
– Installed new instance of vCenter Server and Update Manager, installed
the databases on a Production Microsoft SQL Cluster
– Duplicated Port Groups of VDS to a VSS to migrate VM’s without
network interruption
– Use a designated “shuttle” ESXi 4.1 host to migrate VM’s from 4.1 to 5.0
– Perform new installation of ESXi 5.0 on hosts, formatted LUN’s with
VMFS5
– Implemented Update Manager to patch hosts, update VM tools and
hardware versions
– Thin Appe’d the vSphere 5.0 client and deployed to end users

8. Upgrade Challenges and Design contd.

9. vShield cleanup:
Knowledge Base - 1031044
Booting the ESX host fails with the error: initialization of module dvfilter failed
To resolve this issue:
Run this command to load the dvfilter module:
#esxcfg-module –e /usr/lib/vmware/vmkmod/dvfilter
Remove the IP address from /Net/Net.DVFilterBindIpAddress.
Reboot the ESX host.
Error on console of host Bad IP address in settings
via vSphere UI

10. vCenter Heartbeat:
2 vCenter servers replicated via
Heartbeat, on 2 separate LUNS,
each on a different storage device
(XIV and DS4000)

11. Before and after networking:
New migration VSS ports:
Legacy vShield still there:

12. Shuttle host networking:
Shuttle host now has corresponding
VSS ports for each DVS port group

13. Shuttle host has to be added back into the DV Switch, as part of this, use the
migrate networking wizard to move the guests back into the proper DVS
port groups:

14. Post Upgrade Tasks
– Upgrade Update Manager , or install new

15. Post Upgrade Tasks contd.
– Create folder structure for VM’s
– Apply Updates at the folder with Update Manager

16. Post Upgrade Tasks contd.
– Use Roles to apply granular permissions
– Apply permissions to folders

17. Post Upgrade Tasks contd.
– Use Update Manager for VM Tools and hardware version updates, and
for future host patching

18. Post Upgrade Tasks contd.
– Update Manager Rollback Options when applying VM Tools and
hardware version updates

19. Resources
• vSphere 5 Upgrade Guide
http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-
pubs.html
• Upgrading to ESXi 5.0 best practices
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&c
md=displayKC&externalId=2005102
• Installing Update Manager 5
http://www.vladan.fr/vsphere-5-installing-vum-vmware-update-manager/
• vSphere 5 What’s new class
http://mylearn.vmware.com/mgrreg/courses.cfm?ui=www_edu&a=one&id_
subject=24417