How to: Upgrade to vSphere 4.1

Update Manager upgrade

The last and final step before we can start upgrading ESX hosts, and enjoy all 150 new features, is to upgrade the VMware Update Manager. VMware Upgrade Manager is an essential part of the vSphere 4.1 upgrade process because this is the part that actually performs the upgrade of the ESX hosts.

Start the installation and the previous Update Manager installation is detected.

Check the vCenter server details and supply the service account password to enable the Update Manager to connect to the vCenter server.

The installation detects the current Update Manager database and the used ODBC driver. Check whether the correct database is displayed to avoid upgrading the incorrect database.

Confirm that you want to upgrade your existing database and that you have made a back-up before starting the upgrade process.

Check the ports used by Update Manager. In my home test environment the changes made for the previous installation had been preserved.

This is all the installer want to know before upgrading VMware Update Manager and after a reboot the upgrade process is complete.

The last thing to do is to install and enable the VMware Update Manager plug-in in vCenter server. This was actually the ‘hardest’ part.

After the installation I tried to enable the plug-in but an error appeared stating that no connection with the Update Manager Database could be established. I encountered the exact same message installing vCenter server with Update Manager 4.0 which I solved by running the VMware Update Manager service with the VMware service account instead of Local System. A quick look in the services section of my server learned that this had been undone by the upgrade process but assigning the VMware service account to the Update Manager service did the trick.

Next, ESX host upgrade

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Page 1 – vCenter server upgrade
Page 2 – vSphere client upgrade
Page 3 – Update Manager upgrade
Page 4 - ESX host upgrade

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Pages: 1 2 3 4

Tags: upgrade, VMware, vSphere

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 at 10:13 and is filed under How To, VMware, vSphere. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

About Erik Scholten

Erik Scholten is the founder of VMGuru.nl and works for Imtech ICT as a Solution Architect creating the most ingenious virtual infrastructures. He has over 14 years experience as a system engineer and consultant and now he specializes in virtualization. His current job includes selling, presenting, designing and developing virtual infrastructures for some major companies in the Netherlands. In 2009, 2010 and 2011 VMware awarded him the vExpert award for his virtualization community efforts.

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donkarnash

HI,

I have vcenter 4.0 update 1 with 3 hosts in cluster & HA installed on windows 2003 32bit server.

I have to upgrade to vcenter 4.1 and installed sql express edition

I have moved all vm's from one host to remaining other two.

I have installed ESXi 4.1 build 260247 on one host.

Then created a vm – windows 2008 R2 64bit – installed vcenter 4.1 & vpshere client build 258902.

I ran the agent pre-upgrade check on the existing vcenter.

Also ran backup.bat under datamigration on the existing vcenter.

I copied the vcenter 4.1 installation files and datamigration folder to new server.

I have different host name and different IP address for this new vcenter.

I can login to the vcenter on new host but obviously it is empty.

Now…I need some guidance here.

I do not know if I need to migrate the existing db to new server ??

if yes — how — what are the steps as I do not have SQL Server Management Studio on win 2003 vcenter server.

if no — do I just run the install.bat on the new vcenter server ????

I know I will have to update the configuration files manually as the host name and IP address are different.

which specific files are these ????

Can you please guide me.

Many thanks
Trupel

Thanks for the info! very helpful
Mr Sarge

wy ist it necessary to install the pre-upgrade package via esxupdate before the upgrade with VUM?
http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten

In my opinion, migration or fresh install depends on the amount of configuration in vCenter. If you have a small scale install with a few hosts, a few resource pools, some HA and DRS config, and don't mind losing the performance history, do a fresh install. If performance history is critical and you have a large scale installation with many hosts and maybe additional tools like SRM, I would perform an upgrade.
http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten

Honestly? I have no idea.Maybe to fix a bug which prohibits the update with VUM but that's just speculation.
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John Doe

Nice work Erik and posted just one day after 4.1 is out.
Keep the good work.
Patters

@donkarnash I had the same problem as you by the sound of it. I wrote up a workaround here:
http://pcloadletter.co.uk/2010/07/26/upgrading-…
Sascha Berlin/Germany

many thanks for this how to!

It works fine.
FM

Hi

Looking at upgrading vCenter 4.0 update 1 to vCenter 4.1 and have a DSN question.

The 4.1 upgrade guide says it needs a 64bit DSN, whilst the previous versions used a 32bit DSN.

I created an additional 64bit DSN to point to the vCenter DB – the aiming being to get the installer to use this.

When I run the 4.1 installation it reports I have an earlier version of vCenter alredy installed and it will upgrade this version.In the database options window it detects the 32bit DSN – so I cannot specify the 64bit DSN I created earlier. The next window has the upgrade options for the database, however I'm reluctant to continue on as it's using the 32bit DSN.

Any advice?
http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten

@Home I forgot to update my DSN before the upgrade and updated my vSPhere setup without any problems. Afterwards I removed the 32 bit DSN and replaced it with a 64 bit DSN. No problem.
FM

Cheers for the info.

I shall let the installer continue with the upgrade process, and then check the DSN details.
http://twitter.com/mikek70 Mike Kellenberger

thanks for this how-to! works like a charm and my (first-time) upgrade much easier!
Raed

Hi All:
My Name is Raed, Honestly I just finish the course for VSPHERE 4.1 installation & Implementation , Currently i am running ESXI 3.5 on 3 hosts with No VCENTER , Update Manager … ETC, Actually i am not the person who did the installation for the current 3.5 but now i want to do the upgrade for the current to 4.1, bulding a VCenter and Start enjoy using 4.1 features.

any recommendations or guides according to what mentioned ?

Thank you very much …..
Regards

http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten

Just build a vCenter 4.1 with update manager, add the ESX3.5 host to the new vCenter server and upgrade according to the ‘how to’ above