Upgrading From VMware VSphere 4.1 To 5.1

7/7/2014 Upgrading from VMware vSphere 4.1 to 5.
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Upgrading from VMware vSphere 4.1 to 5.1
By Gregg Robertson
June 21st, 2013
During a recent client engagement I was presented the opportunity to upgrade a clients VMware environment
from vSphere 4.1 to vSphere 5.1 including their SRM estate, also from v4.1 to 5.1. As part of the due diligence
of planning I collected and compiled a fair amount of resource which can be found in a separate blog posting
here. While the information in that blog posting is very helpful I wanted to create this article around the
experience rather than a step by step update guide.
For those of you who are not aware how the new vSphere 5.1 management infrastructure is laid out, VMware
has introduced two new core components in this release, these being Single Sign On and the VMware Web
Client. If youve been involved with VMware products in recent years youll recall this was available previously
but now is likely to be the only access method in the next version of vSphere, its been substantially upgraded
hence why Im referring to it as new.
The Upgrade Process
As part of my initial discovery I established there were 4 individual environments requiring to be upgraded,
these were consistent in their build revision at vSphere 4.1 Update 2.
The steps I followed:
1. Upgrade vCenter 4.1 to vCenter 5.0 on the primary site. This is quite straight forward and I previously
documented the process on my personal blog here.
2. Upgrade SRM 4.1 to SRM 5.0 on the primary site. The upgrade is extremely simple and the only advice I
would give is to ensure you take a database backup prior to the upgrade.
3. Update the SRA software to the SRM 5.0 version for the primary site.
4. Upgrade vCenter 4.1 to 5.0 on the recovery site.
5. Upgrade SRM 4.1 to 5.0 on the recovery site.
6. Update the SRA software to SRM 5.0 for the recovery site.
7. Use the Test Failover feature within SRM to ensure all the components are communicating and
functioning correctly between the two sites.
8. Install the SSO service on the primary site. In this deployment a separate virtual machine was dedicated
to cover role separation and allow for future growth.
9. Make a note of the Lookup Service URL as this will be needed in the next steps.
10. Upgrade the Inventory Service from version 5.0 to 5.1 on the primary site, this is an extremely straight
forward process and you will be asked to insert the Lookup Service URL, mentioned in the previous step.
11. Upgrade vCenter from 5.0 to 5.1 on the primary site. Again, the upgrade is very straight forward and you
will be requested to provide the Lookup Service URL during the installation.
12. Upgrade SRM from 5.0 to 5.1 on the primary site.
13. Update the SRA software to SRM 5.1 for the primary site.
14. Install the SSO service on the recovery site.
15. Upgrade the Inventory Service from version 5.0 to 5.1 on the recovery site.
16. Upgrade vCenter 5.0 to 5.1 on the recovery site.
17. Upgrade SRM 5.0 to 5.1 on the recovery site.
18. Update the SRA software to SRM 5.1 for the recovery site.
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19. Use the Test Failover feature within SRM to ensure all the components are communicating and
functioning correctly between the two sites.
20. Install the Web Client software on the Primary and Recovery sites.
At the time of completing this engagement the Web Client was not able to manage the SRM component so the
last step was more in readiness for future compatibility.
Why 4.1, to 5.0 then 5.1?
The primary reason for needing to stagger the upgrade process from 4.1 to 5.0 and then 5.0 to 5.1 was due to
SRM. Its possible to upgrade vCenter straight from 4.1 to 5.1 but doing so prevents the SRM component
upgrade to 5.0 or 5.1. This inability is recorded in the SRM 5.1 Release Notes, excerpt applicable below:
Upgrade an Existing SRM 4.1.x Installation to SRM 5.1.0.1
Upgrade versions of SRM earlier than 5.0 to SRM 5.0.x before you upgrade to SRM 5.1.0.1.
IMPORTANT: Upgrading vCenter Server directly from 4.1.x to 5.1 is a supported upgrade path. However,
upgrading SRM directly from 4.1.x to 5.1 is not a supported upgrade path. When upgrading a vCenter
Server 4.1.x instance that includes an SRM 4.1.x installation, you must upgrade vCenter Server to version
5.0 or 5.0 u1 before you upgrade SRM to 5.0 or 5.0.1. If you upgrade vCenter Server from 4.1.x to 5.1
directly, when you attempt to upgrade SRM from 4.1.x to 5.0 or 5.0.1, the SRM upgrade fails. SRM 5.0.x
cannot connect to a vCenter Server 5.1 instance.
Conclusion
In this engagement I found the upgrade process was relatively straight forward and fortunate that I did not have
to utilise internally or externally signed certificates apologies to those of you who have to use this process!
The success of the upgrade was very much to do with the planning and I cannot emphasise enough how much
time should be spent investigating the current environment, the build revisions, its dependencies and what
components depend of each other. VMware update their release notes with Knowledgebase articles as known
issues are discovered so always check the text on the website rather than bundle versions within a download.

If you would like talk to us about assisting your organisation with VMware vSphere 5.1 or VMware vCloud 5.1
based solutions, please contact us.
Tagged: srm, upgrade, vsphere
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