Upgrade Prerequisites
- Verify that existing hardware (x86 Server) supports the version of vSphere you are about install
- We can use VMware Harware Compatibility Guide for verifying hardware compatibility with ESXi
- Verify that licenses that are purchased are entitled for an upgrade in My VMware account
- Verify various other VMware solutions that are running in the current vSphere infrastructure
- Check if these solutions are compatible with version of ESXi that we are installing now
- We must use VMware Interoperability Matrix for checking compatibility of various VMware solutions involved in upgrade
- Plan the upgrade or calculate downtime so that we can successfully migrate all VMware infrastructure components and virtual machines to the latest version
- For further details and different scenarios kindly check VMware upgrade guide
Upgrade Steps
- Run vCenter Host agent pre upgrade checker which can help avoid manual checking
- Upgrade other VMware Solutions that we may be using in the infrastructure
- Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance or vCenter for Windows
- Upgrade vSphere Client if you are using it
- Upgrade your Licensing , this is very important
- If we are not using any simple install, then we must upgrade Update Manager
- Upgrade ESXi hosts
- Upgrade VMware Tools to the latest version
- Finally we can then upgrade datastores VMFS version to the latest version
Kindly go through VMware vSphere Upgrade document before beginning the upgrade process.