Setup guide

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VMware vSphere® 5.0 Upgrade

Best Practices

Obtaining vSphere 5.0 Licenses

All vSphere customers with an active Support and Subscription (SnS) contract are entitled to upgrade to

vSphere 5.0 at no extra charge. To get your vSphere 5.0 license keys, log in to the support Web site

(https://www.vmware.com/support/licensing/) using your customer information, and accept the new end-user

licensing agreement, after which you will be able to access your vSphere 5.0 license keys. For more information

on ESXi 5.0 licensing, refer to the VMware vSphere 5.0 License, Pricing and Packaging white paper

(http://www.vmware.com/ﬁles/pdf/vsphere_pricing.pdf).

Leveraging the vCenter 60-Day Trial License

vSphere makes it very easy to avoid virtual machine downtime during upgrades by using features such as

VMware vSphere® vMotion®, vSphere Storage vMotion, VMware HA and vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler

(DRS). However, not all vSphere editions have these features enabled. Fortunately, with each vCenter 5.0

installation/upgrade, you get a free 60-day trial period that allows unrestricted access to all the

vSphere features.

Take advantage of this free trial period to eliminate virtual machine downtime during the upgrade. Prior to the

end of the trial period, and after you have upgraded all your hosts, you must install your own vSphere 5.0 license

keys for the edition(s) you have purchased.

Upgrading to VMware vCenter Server 5.0

The ﬁrst step in any vSphere migration project should always be the upgrade of vCenter Server. Your vCenter

Server must be running at version 5.0 in order to manage an ESXi 5.0 host. In most cases, this upgrade is a

straightforward process and can be completed in a matter of hours.

Upgrading vCenter Server 5.0 involves upgrading the vCenter Server machine, its accompanying database, and

any conﬁgured plug-ins, including VMware vSphere® Update Manager and VMware vCenter Orchestrator™. The

upgrade of these separate components is discussed in the VMware vSphere 5.0 Upgrade Guide.

As of vSphere 4.1, vCenter Server requires a 64-bit server running a 64-bit operating system (OS). If you are

currently running vCenter Server on a 32-bit OS, you must migrate to the 64-bit architecture ﬁrst. With the

64-bit vCenter Server, you also must use a 64-bit database source name (DSN) for the vCenter database. You

can continue to run a 32-bit database server, although upgrading to a 64-bit database to better accommodate

future growth and scalability might be desired.

In some cases, it might also be desirable to migrate from the bundled Microsoft SQL Server Express or other

locally installed database server to a supported external database. We have tried to capture the most common

upgrade scenarios and will try to help you plan for your migration to vCenter 5.0.

Planning the Upgrade

As with any migration project, a proper plan is a requirement for a successful completion. Migrating to vCenter

5.0 requires careful planning. The procedure will be inﬂuenced by several factors. These include the OS

architecture used, the type of database used, support of other VMware components and/or solutions, possible

architectural changes, and foreseeable inventory growth. It is recommended that you create an inventory of the

current components and that you validate compatibility with the requirements of vCenter 5.0