New esxi cluster, 5.1 or 5.5 and vcenter upgrade?

Lanz

Lanz

Lanz

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Romford
Situation:
old vcenter (version 5.0, U1) old cluster (5.0, old build)

Installing new cluster, want to use 5.1 (latest) as I feel 5.5 need to mature first and I dont use any of the features.

But do I use 5.5 vCenter for making it easier to upgrade later, or should I just play it safe and use 5.1 vcenter?

Old and new cluster need to work in the same vcenter in the end. Will be migrating VM's onto the new cluster rather than upgrading it.

Thoughts?

Cheers
 
My knee jerk reaction was to use 5.1, but I'm inclined to say go to 5.5.
The only thing behind that is SSO on 5.1 is godawful, but on 5.5 it has been overhauled and is (apparently) way better and a lot easier to install.
 
rotor said:
Go for the 5.5 vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA).
Click to expand...

Tempted, but that would mean disconnecting all my existing old cluster hosts (9 servers) and adding them again to the vCSA. I'd loose all perf data and stuff.

... but a clean install would be nice...
 
Little_Crow said:
My knee jerk reaction was to use 5.1, but I'm inclined to say go to 5.5.
The only thing behind that is SSO on 5.1 is godawful, but on 5.5 it has been overhauled and is (apparently) way better and a lot easier to install.
Click to expand...

I've seen lots of guides to upgrade vc 5.0 to 5.1, but there's not much around for 5.0 to 5.5.
 
Maybe I should open a ticket and pester vmware to see what they would do, 5.0 to 5.1 or 5.0 to 5.5.
 
Lanz said:
Tempted, but that would mean disconnecting all my existing old cluster hosts (9 servers) and adding them again to the vCSA. I'd loose all perf data and stuff.

... but a clean install would be nice...
Click to expand...
I always push for clean installs where possible. So much less hassle in the long term, and losing performance data... meh, it's just not that high on my radar. Performance data is essential for troubleshooting and capacity planning, but outside of that, I have little use for it. So as long as your upgrade is properly planned...

In terms of ESXi 5.5 vs 5.1, upgrading ESXi is dead easy, so go with 5.1 for now, and move to 5.5 in 3 - 6 months. vCenter on the other hand... 5.1 is such a dog to install and configure... 5.5 is meant to be much better, and of course the vCSA is now production-ready (with a few remaining, relatively minor, limitations), which for small environments would be my preference.
 
I'll try and fish out some decent guides for upgrading 5.0 to 5.5, as its more that just perf data, we have resource pools and 3rd party management plugins to consider.
 
All the configuration side of things (resource pools, folders, permissions) is all dead-easy to copy over.
 
Yup, given a chance I always clean-install.

If SSL/SSO is easier on 5.5 then that's a complete win, because 5.1 is tricky to say the least.
 
The 5.1 vCenter appliance is so indescribably terrible, took me the best part of 3 hours to get it authing against AD properly. I haven't heard any major scare stories about 5.5, so I'd definitely go for that.
 
I've had a brief play with the 5.5 appliance. I haven't tried to hook it into AD yet, but it was fairly straightforward to setup (but then I don't remember any major problems setting up the 5.1 appliance either). The key difference is the significantly increased limits meaning it can be used in production. Setting up all the vCenter components on a Windows server is such a tedious and overly-complex task. Of the many, many things I don't understand about VMware, why they haven't made it a TOP priority to migrate all their software to a common appliance platform is beyond me.
 
Just a reminder to make sure everything you're using is compatible (or supported may be the better word) for 5.5, lots of backup systems still yet to claim support for it for example.
 
True. Even loads of server hardware has been removed from the HCL (e.g. most ProLiant G5 and older are now off the HCL).
 
rotor said:
True. Even loads of server hardware has been removed from the HCL (e.g. most ProLiant G5 and older are now off the HCL).
Click to expand...

I'm stuck waiting for Aruba clearpass, nakivo and backup exec support for it before i can upgrade :(

That said backup exec does apparently work, funny thing is though it'll probably be the last one of the 3 to actually claim support for it :p
 
I installed the 5.5 appliance today, was up and running in 10 mins with my new hosts. I'm not sure if veeam supports 5.5 yet though, so think I'll have to scrap the idea.
 
mrbios said:
I'm stuck waiting for Aruba clearpass, nakivo and backup exec support for it before i can upgrade :(

That said backup exec does apparently work, funny thing is though it'll probably be the last one of the 3 to actually claim support for it :p
Click to expand...

Well given you can't run Backup Exec Windows Server on 2012 (never mind 2012 R2) yet, I wouldn't hold your breath.
 
5 1 = windows vista. 5.5 = windows 7

Thats pretty much my experience. So many bugs in 5.1 until few months ago
 
Remember we are just talking about vcenter here, there's no chance I'm going to move everything to esxi 5.5 until U1.

Veeam say they wont support 5.5 until Patch 2 (and Patch 1 hasn't been out long)
 
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