6.5.1

Table Of Contents
vSphere Auto Deploy After an ESXi 5.5.x or ESXi host is deployed with vSphere Auto Deploy,
you can use vSphere Auto Deploy to reprovision the host and reboot it with
a new image profile. This profile contains an ESXi upgrade or patch, a host
configuration profile, and optionally, third-party drivers or management
agents that are provided by VMware partners. You can build custom
images by using vSphere ESXi Image Builder CLI. See Chapter 9 Using
vSphere Auto Deploy to Reprovision Hosts.
vSphere Update
Manager
vSphere Update Manager is software for upgrading, migrating, updating,
and patching clustered hosts, virtual machines, and guest operating
systems. vSphere Update Manager orchestrates host and virtual machine
upgrades. If your site uses vCenter Server, VMware recommends that you
use vSphere Update Manager. For instructions about performing an
orchestrated virtual machine upgrade, see the Installing and Administering
VMware vSphere Update Manager documentation.
The esxupdate and vihostupdate utilities are not supported for ESXi 6.5 upgrades.
Upgrading Virtual Machines and VMware Tools
After you upgrade ESXi hosts, you can upgrade the virtual machines on the host to take advantage of
new features.
VMware offers the following tools for upgrading virtual machines:
vSphere Web Client Requires you to perform the virtual machine upgrade one step at a time,
but does not require vSphere Update Manager. See the information about
upgrading virtual machines in the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
documentation.
vSphere Update
Manager
Automates the process of upgrading and patching virtual machines, thereby
ensuring that the steps occur in the correct order. You can use Update
Manager to directly upgrade the virtual machine hardware version and
VMware Tools. See the Installing and Administering VMware vSphere
Update Manager documentation.
vCenter Server Upgrade Compatibility
The upgrade to vCenter Server 6.5 affects other software components of the data center.
Table 11 summarizes how upgrading vCenter Server can affect your data center components.
vCenter Server 6.5 can manage ESXi version 5.5 or 6.0 hosts in the same cluster with ESXi 6.5
hostsvCenter Server 6.5 cannot manage ESXi 5.1 or earlier hosts.
You cannot upgrade to vCenter Server 6.5 from vCenter Server 5.1 or earlier. You must first upgrade to
vCenter Server version 5.5 or 6.0.
vSphere Upgrade
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