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REVISED 4 NOVEMBER 2020
EVERYTHING YOU WANTEDTO KNOW ABOUT VMWAREVSPHERE 7 UPGRADE
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT VMWARE VSPHERE 7 UPGRADE
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Table of Contents
Introduction
– VMworld Sessions
Why should you upgrade to vSphere 7?
Important information
Simplified SSO topology
Pre-upgrade considerations
Upgrade path
Upgrade Order
Upgrading with vCenter Server high Availability (VCHA)
Upgrading Load balanced vCenter Servers
Post Upgrade considerations
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT VMWARE VSPHERE 7 UPGRADE
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Everything You Wanted To Know About VMwarevSphere 7 Upgrade
IntroductionIt’s been a while now since we have released vSphere 7. It is great to see, a few of our customers have already completed vSphere7 upgrades, and others are either work in progress or still evaluating vSphere 7.
Upgrading vSphere has also been discussed at length at VMworld 2020, so it is worth checking out the below sessions as well.
VMworld SessionsHCP1934: Upgrading to vSphere 7HCP1183: Planning a Successful vSphere 7 UpgradeHCP1830: 99 Problems, but a vSphere upgrade aren’t one
Why should you upgrade to vSphere 7?I would highly recommend you to get yourself familiar with vSphere 7.
Overview of vSphere 7What’s new with vSphere 7 Update1
Check out the vSphere 7 Infographics and download the eBook Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade to VMware vSphere 7 to know more
Important informationEnd of General Support vSphere 6.0: The end of general support for vSphere 6.0 was March 12, 2020. It is highly recommended toupgrade your vSphere Infrastructure to vSphere 7 update1. Check out the KB article KB66977 to know more.
No Windows vCenter Server from vSphere 7 onwards: There is no Windows vCenter server starting from vSphere 7.
No External PSC from vSphere 7 onwards: In the past, you could keep vCenter server, and External PSC separated from each other.From vSphere 7 onwards, there is no support for the external PSC. The External PSCs are now a thing of the past.
Simplified SSO topologyWe have simplified the vSphere 7 topologies by removing the need for an external PSC and Windows vCenter Server. During theupgrade or migration process, external PSC's will be converged to an embedded VCSA appliance. In the case of a windows vCenterServer, a new VCSA appliance is deployed during the upgrade or migration process. All of this will be done automatically.
Check out the simplified SSO topology from vSphere 7 onwards.
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Pre-upgrade considerationsWe strongly recommend you to check the below information before starting the upgrade.
Product Release Notes-1.VMware vSphere 7VMware vSphere 7 Update 1
Interoperability Matrices This will help you to understand the following2.Upgrade PathInteroperability between different VMware Solutions
VMware Compatibility Guides3.
VCG helps you validate the hardware and software compatibility of various hardware components and drivers against a specificESXi host. Also, Don’t forget to validate 3rd party solutions like Backup/DR solutions and monitoring systems.
Backing up vSphere Infrastructure4.
Make sure you have the latest backup available for your vSphere infrastructure, specially the vCenter Server and vDS.
Backing up vCenter ServerBacking up vDS switches
VMware KB articles5.vSphere 7 Upgrade Best Practices (78205)Important information before upgrading to vSphere 7 (78487)End of General Support for vSphere 6.0 (66977)vSphere Back-in-time release upgrade restriction (67077)
ESXi System Storage When Upgrading6.
Upgrade pathWe support the n-2 version from where you can directly upgrade to any of the vSphere versions. Below are the direct supportedupgrade paths to vSphere 7.
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Note: If you are still running a vSphere version 6.0 or prior one, Upgrade your vSphere infrastructure to 6.5 at least,and from here, you can directly upgrade to vSphere 7.
Upgrade OrderBelow is the upgrade order. Click on the below links to know the detailed process.
vCenter Server and PSCs1.ESXi Host2.VM Tools and Hardware version3.Storage – VMFS4.
Upgrading with vCenter Server high Availability (VCHA)You are not required to disable the vCenter HA while upgrading to vSphere 7. You can upgrade the active node first, and it willautomatically deploy a new vcsa appliance and new instances of passive and witness node. Please check out the detailedinstructions for upgrading the vCenter server while in HA configuration.
EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT VMWARE VSPHERE 7 UPGRADE
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Embedded PSC and VCHA: Upgrade a vCenter Server Appliance 6.5 or 6.7 HA Cluster with an Embedded Platform ServicesController by Using the GUIExternal PSC and VCHA: Upgrade a vCenter 6.5 or 6.7 HA Cluster with an External Platform Services Controller by Using theGUI
Upgrading Load balanced vCenter ServersThe new SSO topology doesn’t support external PSC; hence, we no longer need to have the load balancers. Check out the detailedupgrade process here. Below is a high-level overview of the entire process.
Upgrade all the vCenter servers one by one1.
The upgrade process converges the PSC and vCenter server into a single VCSA.
Repoint solutions to new PSC2.
Repoint solutions to the new PSC. Please note old PSC remains active even after the upgrade. There might be solutions (Ex. NSX)in your environment that are still pointing towards the old PSC. Important to repoint these solutions to the new PSC beforeproceeding towards step 3.
Power Off old PSCs3.
Make sure that there are no solutions currently pointing to old PSCs. Power off old PSCs once all the solutions are re-pointed to newPSCs.
Decommission PSCs4.
Run the below command on the vCenter server to remove the old PSC entry from the vCenter Server configuration.
cmos-util unregister --node-pnid <Old PSC FQDN> --username SsoAdminuser-id
Now you can proceed with decommissioning the load balancer5.
Post Upgrade considerationsvSphere 7 has brought in plenty of notable improvements. We recommend you to check out below information to get the best outof vSphere 7.
vSpherevSphere with TanzuImproved vMotionImproved DRS vSphere Clustering ServicesvSphere Clustering Services FAQsvSphere Lifecycle ManagementvSphere 7 youtube Series
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