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© 2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

VMware vSphere Upgrade Tips and Tricks

Patrick Kremer – Systems Engineer, VMwareTwitter: @KremerPatrick

URL for this deck will be provided at the end of the presentation

Upgrade Planning

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CHECK YOUR HARDWARE COMPATIBLITY!!!!!!!!!!Seriously. Check it.

• VMware Compatibility List: http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

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CHECK YOUR GUEST OS COMPATIBLITY!!!!!!!!!!Check it twice. http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

• Customers run into problems when they don’t discover that the guest OS is no longer supported until an outage.

• Finding out that your productionSQL guest is unsupported during an outage:

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Prepare your upgrade sequenceWe’ve got a list for that

• VMware supported upgrade sequence: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2109760

• There are 29 VMware products on the list. vCenter Server is 12th! ESXi is 24th!

• If you upgrade out of sequence:

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2x

2x1.5x

3x

2x

2x

4x

Platform Features - Increased vSphere MaximumsUp to 4X Scale Improvement with vSphere 6

vSphere 5.5 vSphere 6

Hosts per Cluster 32 64

VMs per Cluster 4,000 8,000

CPUs per Host 320 480

RAM per Host 4 TB 12 TB

VMs per Host 512 1,024

Virtual CPUs per VM 64 128

Virtual RAM per VM 1 TB 4 TB

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vCenter Server Features - Enhanced Capabilities

Metric Windows Appliance

Hosts per VC 1,000 1,000

Powered-On VMs per VC 10,000 10,000

Hosts per Cluster 64 64

VMs per Cluster 8,000 8,000

Linked Mode ✔ ✔

• Scalability supported by both Windows Install and vCenter Server appliance.

• Windows install supports Postgres and External SQL and Oracle DBs.

• vCSA supports embedded Postgres and external Oracle DBs.

• vCSA converter Fling:https://labs.vmware.com/flings/vcs-to-vcva-converter

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vCenter Server 6.0 – Platform Services Controller

Platform Services Controller takes it beyond just Single Sign-On. It groups: Single Sign-On (SSO) Licensing Certificate Authority

Two Deployment Models:• Embedded

vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller in one virtual machine- Recommended for small deployments where there is less then two SSO integrated solutions

• External vCenter Server and Platform Services Controller in their own virtual

machines- Recommended for most deployments where there are two or more SSO integrated solutions

Platform Services Controller

PSC

vCenter

vCenter

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Platform Services Controller (PSC)Internal or External?

PSC migration: Sean Whitney, Senior Technical Support Engineer with VMwarehttp://www.virtually-limitless.com/vsphere-6-0/upgrading-from-embedded-sso-5-5-to-external-sso-psc-6-0/

• External was designed to eliminate the dependency on vCenter.• Other VMware software products rely on SSO for their authentication.• If you currently use other VMware offerings, or think you might in the future, consider external.

• There is currently no supported way to move from a 6.0 embedded PSC to a 6.0 external PSC. Support is being worked on but there is no official release date.

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vCenter Server 6.0 - ClientsClient Comparison

Use case Web Client vSphere Client

vSphere management ✔ ✔

ESXi/VM patching (VUM) ✖ ✔

Hardware version 8-11 ✔ ✔*

New features ✔ ✖* v10-11 Read only access

vCenter Server 6.0 - vSphere Web Client• Usability Improvements

– Can get anywhere in one click– Right click menu has been flattened– Recent tasks are back at the bottom– Dockable UI

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Read the vCenter Deployment Guidehttp://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/techpaper/vmware-vcenter-server6-deployment-guide.pdf

• To upgrade to vCenter 6.0, you must be running vCenter 5.0 or later.• Consider making PSC a subordinate CA

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Read the vCenter High Availability Blog entryhttp://blogs.vmware.com/vsphere/2015/03/vcenter-server-6-topology-ha.html

• You can use FT to protect vCenter

• Cluster the backend database

• Cluster vCenter with Windows Server Failover Clustering (introduced in vCenter 5.5U3)

A few points pulled from the blog post:

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Upgrading ESXiOld School

• Boot directly from ISO and manually execute the upgrade.

• If you’re doing this on more than 1 host:

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Upgrading ESXiUpdate Manager

• Works very well for most upgrades• You can import vendor custom ISOs (i.e. HP and Dell ISOs) with all the required custom drivers• Create a baseline with your custom ISO and attach it to a cluster.• Full Update Manager upgrade documentation for vSphere 6 here.• 6 minute VMware-authored video on the whole process here.

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Upgrading ESXiUpdate Manager

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Upgrading ESXiUpdate Manager

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Upgrading ESXiUpdate Manager

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Upgrading ESXiUpdate Manager

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Upgrading/Installing ESXiScripted

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Upgrading/Installing ESXiScripted

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Upgrading/Installing ESXiScripted

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Upgrading/Installing ESXiScripted – William Lam’s virtuallyGhetto.com

PXE Boot install

Custom Boot Menu Install

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Upgrading/Installing ESXiScripted – William Lam’s virtuallyGhetto.com

Semi-Interactive

Maintain a single copy of the kickstart config that is not host-specific, then key in the specificparameters on boot.

Questions?Patrick KremerSystems EngineerTwitter: @KremerPatrick

This deck is available at http://www.patrickkremer.com/vmug

© 2014 VMware Inc. All rights reserved.

vSphere 6 Certification Changes

Patrick Kremer – Systems Engineer, VMwareEmail: pkremer@vmware.comTwitter: @KremerPatrick

URL for this deck will be provided at the end of the presentation

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapVMware Technical Certifications

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapVCA Exams – Online exams proctored by Pearson Vue.

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapvSphere 6 Foundations exam

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapvSphere 6 Foundations exam – Required base certification for all new VCP candidates

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapVCP6-DCV – Migration for existing VCP holders

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Version 6 Certification RoadmapVCAPs are now VCIXs

There will still be 2 exams – an administration and a design exam, but you have to pass both to achieve the VCIXcertification.