vSphere 6 Lab Upgrade – Overview

This article is now 7 years old! It is highly likely that this information is out of date and the author will have completely forgotten about it. Please take care when following any guidance to ensure you have up-to-date recommendations.

I tested vSphere 6 quite intensively when it was in beta, but I didn’t ever upgrade my lab - basically because I need a stable environment to work on and I wasn’t sure that I could maintain that with the beta.

Now 6 has been GA a while and I have a little bit of time, I have begun the lab upgrade process. You can see a bit more about my lab hardware over on my lab page.

I will be upgrading

vCenter Server Appliance - currently 5.5 update 1

vSphere Update Manager - currently 5.5 update 1

3 HP N54L resource hosts

1 Intel NUC management host

In my lab I run various VMware software suites listed below, although I typically run them in nested environments to keep my lab install relatively clean.

vCloud Director

vRealize Automation

vRealize Orchestrator

NSX

Other considerations:

VSAN - I currently run VSAN 5.5 and will need to upgrade to 6.0

Update Manager - I’d prefer to update my hosts using Update Manager where possible

Certificates - I currently use a Microsoft CA, I’d like to move to the VMCA as a subordinate CA

Drivers - VMware changed the drivers supported in ESXi, some consumer grade drivers are blacklisted

Backup - I use the excellent Veeam Backup and Replication to protect key lab machines, and I know that it doesn’t yet support vSphere 6. That’s a hit I can take in my lab.

To upgrade I need to first verify everything is compatible using the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes.

High level plan

Having read a lot of vSphere 6 docs, my upgrade plan is as follows:

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance

Upgrade vSphere Update Manager

Upgrade ESXi

Upgrade VSAN

Upgrade nested labs and other software suites

Share this post