Upgrade VMware vCentre Appliance Version 6.5 to 6.7

 

vSphere 6.7 - How to upgrade vCenter 6.5 to vCenter 6.7 

We  have planning to upgrade the VCenter from 6.5 to 6.7 version. Please find the step by Step process. Let us know the feedback of the steps. 

Two simple stages that mirror the migration process of  vCenter Server Appliance.

• Stage 1 will deploy an entirely new appliance, thereby protecting your VCSA from any potential upgrading problems, wrong configuration, or other errors.
• Stage 2 will export all data and configuration to a new VM. If anything goes wrong, you’ll be alright because all you have to do is delete this new VM and start your other VM with enabled VCSA.

Step by Step Process to upgrade vCenter Server Appliance 

Before you start your upgrade, update your vCenter 6.5 using your VAMI so that we can upgrade the latest version to the latest version and again bypass any possible bug that was meanwhile fixed.

Recommend  the three ways below to backup your vCenter. Its Mandatory

1. Backup the VCSA from VAMI Console 
2. Clone the vCenter VCSA
3. Snapshot

Log on to VMware portal and download the  vCenter  appliance from the list. (It does not matter if you choose Essentials, Standard, etc, they are all the same).

 Navigate to your downloads folder when the download completes and click the file to mount it to a virtual DVD drive. 

Go to  Windows Explorer and look for the files inside your DVD drive and  expand vcsa-ui-installer to open that folder.

Stage1 : Appliance Upgrade

Run the Installer.exe file from previous steps and below screen will be prompted for upgrade , Now select upgrade option from the below screen 

 Deploy appliance and click next 

Accept the License Agreement in below screen to proceed further 

Enter the FQDN name for your existing vCenter server.  Port 443 is appropriate  and provide the necessary credentials 

Next step to identify which ESXi host is managing your appliance.

After entering the credentials, Click next and you will get prompted to review the Certificate , Just Click yes Proceed further 

Enter the ESXi server that will host your upgraded vCenter Appliance and  making a new vCenter with this steps. Ensure DRS option changed from Automatically to Manual 

Set the name and password for your new vCenter. 

Select the Deployment size which is depend upon your environment 

Select  the datastore that will host your new vCenter server.  Remember that by default it will take space 850 GB thick provisioned for a Tiny deployment

Select a Network that both your existing vCenter and the new vCenter can communicate on, with their IP addresses.  The new vCenter will use the Temporary IP address for a few minutes during the upgrade process, then it will switch to the existing IP address of your vCenter server.    Make sure no other devices are using the Temporary IP address.

Ready to complete displays.  When you click Finish, the deployment will start.

This process takes less than an hour.    Make sure that your system doesn’t disconnect from the network during this process.  (If it does disconnect, no problem, just re-start from the beginning.)

Phase 1 shows complete. The new vCenter virtual machine is deployed, but not configured. Beginning Phase 2 of the upgrade.

Stage 2 Upgrade VCSA

Select the Continue tab and proceed the Upgrade 

It is normal to get several warnings.  Errors are bad, and will cause your upgrade to fail. Warnings are not bad.   Read them and take action if appropriate.

Small and medium businesses types  don’t have that much data in their vCenter.  In this example, there is only 3.18 GB of data to transfer and  there is not a big difference between the sizes of each choice, I choose to move over everything.  It is good to retain historical data when possible.

Join the CEIP. If you are working on a secure network, then don’t check it.

Phase 2 proceeds.  It should finish within about 30 minutes.

When the upgrade wizard completes, your old vCenter will be powered off and your new vCenter (running 6.7) will be powered on automatically .

Now  rename your old vCenter to something like “old_vCenter”.

Start test your ability to log onto the vCenter appliance (https://vcenter.com:5480)

Test your ability to manage your virtual machines (https://vcenter.com/vsphere-client)

Make sure to check your backup jobs.  They should switch to using the new vCenter automatically, but double-check.

Once you are fine with the new vCenter and you have at least one good backup of it, then you can delete your old vcenter.

Remember that if the new vCenter doesn’t work, you can revert your changes simply by powering it off and powering the new vCenter on.  You may need to log into individual hosts (https://host_ip_address) to do this if your vCenter isn’t working.

Trouble Shooting Steps during the Process 

Stage1 : 

Minor issue occured during the “Upgrade Stage 1: Deploy Appliance” phase. Operation would halt with “Failed to authenticate with the guest operating system using the supplied credentials.” But credentials are good and I can login to VCSA, VAMI.

So I changed all of the passwords to numbers and letters only with a single known good special character. After that Problem will be solved. 

Passwords like below format will not work with this utility. 
Sa5@7CA*p&Pkn
9dss8sP(Q#usSK8T

Temporary IP error: The upgrade will attempt to ping the IP address you chose for the temporary vCenter IP address.  If it pings, the upgrade will fail.  Make sure nothing is using that IP.For information about cleaning up failed upgrade steps, see troubleshooting at the bottom of the article.

Phase 2

NTP error:  Make sure your source VCSA has good NTP settings which are the same as the host you are using for source and destination.  See this VMware article about configuring NTP.   https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/57146

Manually verify every password for each device (your existing vCenter administrator@vsphere.local, your existing vCenter root, the source ESXi host root, the destination ESXi host root).  It is common for the vCenter root to be expired.