VMware vSphere Upgrade Tips and Tricks

URL for this deck will be provided at the end of the presentation

Patrick Kremer Systems Engineer, VMware

Twitter: @KremerPatrick

2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Upgrade Planning

CHECK YOUR HARDWARE COMPATIBLITY!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously. Check it.
VMware Compatibility List: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

CHECK YOUR GUEST OS COMPATIBLITY!!!!!!!!!!

Check it twice. http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php
Customers run into problems when they dont discover that the guest OS is no longer supported until an outage.

Finding out that your production

SQL guest is unsupported
during an outage:

Prepare your upgrade sequence

Weve got a list for that
VMware supported upgrade sequence: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2109760
There are 29 VMware products on the list. vCenter Server is 12th! ESXi is 24th!
If you upgrade out of sequence:

Platform Features - Increased vSphere Maximums

Up to 4X Scale Improvement with vSphere 6
vSphere 5.5

vSphere 6

Hosts per Cluster

32

64

2x

VMs per Cluster

4,000

8,000

CPUs per Host

320

480

RAM per Host

4 TB

12 TB

2x
1.5
x
3x

VMs per Host

512

1,024

2x

Virtual CPUs per VM

64

128

2x

Virtual RAM per VM

1 TB

4 TB

4x
8

vCenter Server Features - Enhanced Capabilities

Scalability supported by both
Windows Install and vCenter Server
appliance.
Windows install supports Postgres
and External SQL and Oracle DBs.
Metric

Windows

Appliance

Hosts per VC

1,000

1,000

Powered-On VMs per VC

10,000

10,000

Hosts per Cluster

64

64

VMs per Cluster

8,000

8,000

Linked Mode

vCSA supports embedded Postgres

and external Oracle DBs.
vCSA converter Fling:
https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vcs-t
o-vcva-converter

vCenter Server 6.0 Platform Services Controller

Platform Services Controller

Two Deployment Models:

Platform Services Controller
takes it beyond just Single
Sign-On. It groups:

Embedded

Single Sign-On (SSO)

External

Licensing
Certificate Authority

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller in one virtual machine

- Recommended for small deployments where there is less then two SSO
integrated solutions

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller in their own virtual

machines
- Recommended for most deployments
vCenter where there are two or more SSO
integrated solutions

PSC
vCenter
10

Platform Services Controller (PSC)

Internal or External?

External was designed to eliminate the dependency on vCenter.

Other VMware software products rely on SSO for their authentication.
If you currently use other VMware offerings, or think you might in the future, consider external.

PSC migration: Sean Whitney, Senior Technical Support Engineer with VMware
http://www.virtually-limitless.com/vsphere-6-0/upgrading-from-embedded-sso-5-5-to-external-sso-psc-6-0/
There is currently no supported way to move from a 6.0 embedded PSC to a 6.0 external
PSC. Support is being worked on but there is no official release date.

12

vCenter Server 6.0 - Clients

Client Comparison

Use case

Web Client

vSphere Client

vSphere management

ESXi/VM patching (VUM)

Hardware version 8-11

New features

* v10-11 Read only access

13

vCenter Server 6.0 - vSphere Web Client

Usability Improvements
Can get anywhere in one click
Right click menu has been flattened
Recent tasks are back at the bottom
Dockable UI

14

Read the vCenter Deployment Guide

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vcenter-server6-deployment-guide.pdf
To upgrade to vCenter 6.0, you must be running vCenter 5.0 or later.
Consider making PSC a subordinate CA

15

Read the vCenter High Availability Blog entry

http://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/03/vcenter-server-6-topology-ha.html
A few points pulled from the blog post:
You can use FT to protect vCenter
Cluster the backend database
Cluster vCenter with Windows Server Failover Clustering (introduced in vCenter 5.5U3)

16

Upgrading ESXi
Old School

Boot directly from ISO and manually execute the upgrade.

If youre doing this on more than 1 host:

17

Upgrading ESXi
Update Manager

Works very well for most upgrades

You can import vendor custom ISOs (i.e. HP and Dell ISOs) with all the required custom drivers
Create a baseline with your custom ISO and attach it to a cluster.
Full Update Manager upgrade documentation for vSphere 6 here.

6 minute VMware-authored video on the whole process here.

18

Upgrading ESXi
Update Manager

19

Upgrading ESXi
Update Manager

20

Upgrading ESXi
Update Manager

21

Upgrading ESXi
Update Manager

22

Upgrading/Installing ESXi
Scripted

23

Upgrading/Installing ESXi
Scripted

24

Upgrading/Installing ESXi
Scripted

25

Upgrading/Installing ESXi
Scripted William Lams virtuallyGhetto.com

PXE Boot install

Custom Boot Menu Install

26

Upgrading/Installing ESXi
Scripted William Lams virtuallyGhetto.com

Semi-Interactive

Maintain a single copy of the kickstart config that is not host-specific, then key in the specific
parameters on boot.

27

Questions?
Patrick Kremer
Systems Engineer
Twitter: @KremerPatrick
This deck is available at http://www.patrickkremer.com/vmug

vSphere 6 Certification Changes

URL for this deck will be provided at the end of the presentation

Patrick Kremer Systems Engineer, VMware

Email: pkremer@vmware.com
Twitter: @KremerPatrick

2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

VMware Technical Certifications

30

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

VCA Exams Online exams proctored by Pearson Vue.

31

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

vSphere 6 Foundations exam

32

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

vSphere 6 Foundations exam Required base certification for all new VCP candidates

33

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

VCP6-DCV Migration for existing VCP holders

34

Version 6 Certification Roadmap

VCAPs are now VCIXs

and a design exam, but you have to pass both to achieve the VCIX

35