VCP6-DCV Exam Cram Notes: Section 4 of 10

Section 4 - Upgrade a vSphere Deployment to 6.x

Platform Services Controller - enables an Administrator to authenticate into multiple vCenter Servers with a single login using Enhanced Link Mode.

Objective 4.1 - Perform ESXi Host and Virtual Machine Upgrades

Minimum hardware and system resources for ESXi 6.0:

- Supported server platform (refer to VMware Compatibility Guide)

- 2 CPU cores

- 64-bit x86 processor (released post Sept ’06)

- NX/XD bit enabled in BIOS

- Minimum 4GB RAM (recommended 8GB)

- For 64-bit VMs, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI)

- One or more Gigabit or faster Ethernet interfaces

- SCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with un-partitioned space for VMs

- Minimum storage: 1GB boot device (5.2GB when booting from local disk, FC or iSCSI LUN - 4GB is used for scratch partition)

Note: If space cannot be found for scratch partition, /scratch is located on the ESXi host ramdisk.

Supported upgradeable (to version 6.0) versions of vSphere Distributed Switch (vDS) are versions 5.x or later. New features in version 6.0:

- Network I/O Control: Support for per-VM Distributed vSwitch bandwidth reservations

Note: Upgrade to vDS 6.0 is non-disruptive (right-click vSphere Distributed Switch -> Upgrade -> Upgrade Distributed Switch)

Upgrade VMware Tools, can be completed either:

- manually

- configure virtual machines to ‘Check and upgrade VMware Tools before each power on’

- VMware Update Manager (Predefined baseline: VMware Tools Upgrades to Match Host)

Upgrade Virtual Machine Hardware:

ESXi 6.0+: hardware version 11

ESXi 5.5+: hardware version 10

ESXi 5.1+: hardware version 9

ESXi 5.0+: hardware version 8

ESXi 4.0+: hardware version 7

ESXi 3.5+: hardware version 4

ESXi 2.x+: hardware version 3

Note 1: VM needs to be powered off for VM Hardware upgrade

Note 2: 7 is the maximum VM hardware version a VM built using vSphere 4.1 would be at before it gets moved to ESXi 6.0.

Upgrade an ESXi Host Using vCenter Update Manager (VUM):

- Both vCenter Server and vSphere Update Manager must have already been upgraded to vSphere 6.0

- You can upgrade ESXi 5.0, 5.1, and 5.5 hosts directly to ESXi 6.0

- You cannot use VUM to upgrade hosts to ESXi 5.x is the host was previously upgraded from ESX 3.x or ESX 4.x

- Hosts must have more than 350MB free space in /boot to support VUM upgrade process

Remember: ESXi 5.0 - is the minimum version supported for upgrade to ESXi 6.x using Update Manager

The following vSphere components are upgraded by VUM:

- ESX and ESXi kernel

- Virtual Machine hardware

- VMware Tools

- Virtual Appliances

Note: Must use the vSphere Client (not Web) for VUM: vSphere Client -> Solutions and Applications -> Update Manager (use ‘Import ESXi Image’ or create baseline via ‘Baselines and Groups’)

Determine Whether an In-Place Upgrade is Appropriate in a Given Upgrade Scenario: when you upgrade ESXi 5.X hosts that have custom VIBs to version 6.0, the custom VIBs are migrated.

Methods supported for direct upgrade from ESXi 5.x to 6.0 are:

- vSphere Update Manager

- Interactive upgrade from CD, DVD, or USB drive

- Scripted upgrade

- vSphere Auto Deploy (reprovision)

- The esxcli command

The access types supported for script retrieval by the host when performing ESXi scripted installation...

... HTTP

... HTTPS

... FTP

Objective 4.2 - Perform vCenter Server Upgrades

Identify Steps Required to Upgrade a vSphere Implementation:

- Read the vSphere release notes

- Verify that you system meets vSphere hardware and software requirements

- Verify that you have backed up your configuration

- If your vSphere system includes VMware solutions or plug-ins, verify that they are compatible with the vCenter Server or vCenter Server Appliance version to which you are upgrading

- Upgrade vCenter Server

General order of the upgrades:

1. Upgrade each vCenter Single Sign-On one at a time (if separate)

2. Upgrade each vCenter Server one at a time

3. Upgrade each ESXi host one at a time

Identify Upgrade Requirements for vCenter:

- If vCenter Server service is not running as Local System, verify the service user account:

-- Member of the Administrators Group

-- Log on as a service

-- Act as part of the operating system (if domain user)

- Verify LOCAL SERVICE account has read permission on the folder in which vCenter Server is installed and on the HKLM registry

vCenter Server for Windows Hardware Requirements:

- Platform Services Controller (PSC): 2 CPUs and 2GB RAM

- Tiny: 10 hosts/10 VMs - 2 CPUs and 8GB RAM

- Small: 100 hosts/1000 VMs - 4 CPUs and 16GB RAM

-Medium: 400 hosts/4000 VMs - 8 CPUs and 24GB RAM

-Large: 1’000 hosts/10’000 VMs - 16 CPUs and 32GB RAM

vCenter Server for Windows Software Requirements:

- Supported operating system

- 64-bit system DSN for vCenter Server to connect to the external database

vCenter Server for Windows Database Requirements:

- Up to 20 hosts and 200 VMs, can use the bundled PostgreSQL DB

- vCenter Server supports Oracle and MS SQL

vCenter Server Appliance Requirements:

- ESXi host 5.0 or later

- Synchronize clocks

- Use FQDN

vCenter Server Appliance (VCA) Hardware Requirements:

- Platform Services Controller (PSC): 2 CPUs and 2GB RAM

- Tiny: 10 hosts/10 VMs - 1 CPU and 8GB RAM

- Small: 100 hosts/1000 VMs - 4 CPUs and 16GB RAM

-Medium: 400 hosts/4000 VMs - 8 CPUs and 24GB RAM

-Large: 1’000 hosts/10’000 VMs - 16 CPUs and 32GB RAM

Note: VCA is SUSE 11 U3

Note: PostgreSQL supports up to 1’000 hosts and 10’000 VMs

Note: VCA supports ONLY Oracle for external connected databases

Note: For embedded PSC, add hardware requirements to hardware requirements for vCenter

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance (VCA) using vcsa-setup

Identify the Methods of Upgrading vCenter:

- vSphere 5.5 and earlier using Simple Install option

- vSphere 5.5 and earlier using Custom Install option

Image: Simple Install

Image: Custom Install

Identify/Troubleshoot vCenter Upgrade Errors:

Log location for Windows Based vCenter Server:

- C:\ProgramData\VMware\CIS\logs

- C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp

Log Collection for VCA:

- Access appliance shell

- run pi shell to access Bash

- in Bash run vc-support.sh to generate support bundle

- .tgz is in /var/tmp

- Determine which firstboot script failed