VMware vSphere Upgrade Center

Determine Your Current VMware Infrastructure Deployment Scenario

Before starting down the path to VMware vSphere, it is worth taking some time to determine what your current VMware Infrastructure deployment scenario looks like with respect to the setup of VMware vCenter and how it is configured to support VI3 Clusters with Resource Pools, VMware HA and VMware DRS. Here we present a mapping of the supported VMware Infrastructure deployment scenarios with respect to VMware vCenter and storage for your boot volume and virtual machine datastores. The tactical steps that you will follow for the three phases associated with the VMware vSphere migration will be identical for all the deployment scenarios depicted in the diagram.

Understanding the Migration Path to VMware vSphere

Phase 1: Complete the upgrade of the VMware vCenter Server along with VMware Update Manager. VMware Converter Enterprise and VMware Guided Consolidation are two additional components that can be installed along with their respective VMware vCenter Client plug-in.

Phase 2: Choose from three VMware ESX migration methods. The three options are: VMware Update Manager, Host Update Utility or Clean Install of VMware ESX 4.

Phase 3: Complete the upgrade of your Virtual Machines by first upgrading VMware Tools, followed by the upgrade of the Virtual Hardware from version 4 to version 7.

VMware vSphere Licensing is not designated as a specific phase in the VMware vSphere Migration, as you have the choice to introduce VMware vSphere licensing immediately after Phase 1 is completed, or at any point while working on Phases 2 and 3.