Installation guide

You can install the vSphere Client on the same machine with your previous version of the VI Client. You
must have the previous version of the VI Client to connect to previous versions of VirtualCenter and
ESX/ESXi.
For the supported operating systems and other prerequisites, see the Compatibility Matrixes and the
Installation Guide.
Procedure
1 Install ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0.
2 Create a VMFS3 datastore with a capacity that is greater than or equal to the VMFS2 datastore on the
ESX 2.5.x host.
3 Add the ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 host to vCenter Server.
4 Remove the ESX 2.5.x host from VirtualCenter 1.4.x and add it to vCenter Server 4.0.
For upgrade VMotion to work, the ESX 2.5.x and ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 hosts must be managed by the same
vCenter Server.
5 Expose the VMFS2 volume to the ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 host.
Upgrade VMotion requires that both the VMFS2 and VMFS3 volume are visible to the ESX 4.0 host. VMFS2
volumes are read-only on ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0 hosts.
6 Select a powered on virtual machine and migrate it.
Upgrade VMotion copies the disk from VMFS2 to VMFS3. This process takes a varying amount of time,
depending on the size of the disk and the IO load.
The hardware version of the virtual machines is automatically upgraded from version 3 to version 4.
What to do next
1 Optionally, upgrade the virtual machines further.
a If they are not already powered on, power on the virtual machines and upgrade to the latest version
of VMware Tools. This upgrade allows you to use the new features of ESX 4.0./ESXi 4.0.
b Power off the virtual machines and upgrade to the latest version of virtual hardware (version 7) to
take advantage of the new virtual hardware. vSphere 4.0 supports some earlier virtual hardware
versions. See Basic System Administration.
The virtual machine upgrade process is different for ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0. In earlier versions, you upgraded
the virtual hardware upgrade before you upgraded VMware Tools. For ESX 4.0/ESXi 4.0, you upgrade
VMware Tools before you upgrade the virtual hardware.
You can use either the vSphere Client or vCenter Update Manager to upgrade virtual machines. In a
clustered environment, VMware recommends that you use vCenter Update Manager . See the vCenter
Update Manager Administration Guide. If you are using the vSphere Client to upgrade virtual machines, see
Chapter 13, “Upgrading Virtual Machines,” on page 83.
2 Upgrade your product licenses:
a Either your new license keys are sent to you in email, or you get them using the license portal.
b Apply the new license keys to your assets using the vSphere Client (or vCenter Server if you have it).
You must perform these tasks for each ESX 2.5.x host and the virtual machines on the hosts.
Chapter 2 Example Upgrade Scenarios
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