Specifications

Versions 5.0 Update 1 and later, 5.1.x, and 5.5 of the vCenter Server Appliance use PostgreSQL for the
embedded database instead of IBM DB2, which was used in vCenter Server Appliance 5.0. If you use the
embedded database with the vCenter Server Appliance, when you upgrade from version 5.0 to version 5.5,
the embedded IBM DB2 database is migrated to a PostgreSQL database. The configuration state of your
existing database is preserved and the schema is upgraded to be compatible with vCenter Server Appliance
5.5.
NOTE vCenter Server 5.5 supports connection between vCenter Server and vCenter Server components by
IP address only if the IP address is IPv4-compliant. To connect to a vCenter Server system in an IPv6
environment, you must use the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) or host name of the vCenter Server.
The best practice is to use the FQDN, which works in all cases, instead of the IP address, which can change if
assigned by DHCP.
Version 5.5 of the vCenter Server Appliance is deployed with virtual hardware version 7, which supports
eight virtual CPUs per virtual machine in ESXi. Depending on the hosts that you will manage with the
vCenter Server Appliance, you might want to upgrade the ESXi hosts and update the hardware version of
the vCenter Server Appliance to support more virtual CPUs:
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ESXi 4.x supports up to virtual hardware version 7 with up to 8 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.
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ESXi 5.0.x supports up to virtual hardware version 8 with up to 32 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.
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ESXi 5.1.x supports up to virtual hardware version 9 with up to 64 virtual CPUs per virtual machine.
CAUTION If you update the vCenter Server appliance to hardware version 10, you cannot edit the virtual
machine settings for the appliance using the vSphere Client. This might cause difficulties in managing the
vCenter Server Appliance, because you cannot use the vSphere Web Client to connect directly to the host on
which the vCenter Server Appliance resides to manage it. Do not upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance to
hardware version 10.
To update the virtual hardware version of a virtual machine, see the information about virtual machine
compatibility levels in the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.
NOTE If your upgrade reconfigures the appliance to use an external vCenter Single Sign-On instance on a
Microsoft Windows host, after the upgrade, you cannot log in as root unless you add a user by that name to
the vCenter Single Sign-On host. Windows does not include a root user by default.
Prerequisites
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Verify that the clocks of all machines on the vSphere network are synchronized. See “Synchronizing
Clocks on the vSphere Network,” on page 53.
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If your vCenter Server Appliance uses an external instance of vCenter Single Sign-On, upgrade Single
Sign-On to the same version as the vCenter Server Appliance version that you are upgrading to.
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Verify that the vCenter Server SSL certificate for your existing vCenter Server Appliance is configured
correctly. See VMware Knowledge Base article 2057223.
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Back up the vCenter Server database.
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Create a snapshot of the vCenter Server Appliance.
Procedure
1 Deploy the new version of the vCenter Server Appliance.
The new appliance has a default network configuration, and the vCenter Server service is unconfigured
and disabled. You do not need to configure NFS on the new appliance. This configuration is copied
automatically on upgrade.
vSphere Upgrade
120 VMware, Inc.