Usually vCenter and ESXi license is for major version of product, so for example when you have license for vSphere 6, you can install 6.0, 6.5 and 6.7, but for 7.0 (once released) you will need new license key. Always check MD5 checksum after download. Download installation files only from trusted sites. In the past there were several cases, then couple days after release there was some issue with upgrade and VMware removed it until fix was available. Usually going with the just released version isn’t good idea.
When during upgrade you changing vCenter Server for Windows to vCenter Server Appliance, it is migration.Ĭheck VMware documentation about upgrades, updates and patches First stepįirst you need to decide to which version you would like to upgrade to. Because updates and patches do not involve major changes to the software, ESXi host configuration is not affected. In VMware there are also patches, which are smaller changes then updates (example security patches). Updates are releases that makes a smaller change, for example going from vSphere 6.0 U1 to vSphere 6.0 U2 (U stands for Update). During upgrade ESXi host configuration can be changed. Upgrades involves major changes to the software, so when you are running vSphere 6.0 and want to go to vSphere 6.5, you are doing upgrade. First lets describe what is the difference between update and upgrade.ĭifference between update and upgrade depends if you are changing the version or you stay at the same major version. I will write about vSphere upgrade, but most of this things are universal also for other products. In this post I would like to describe some good practices. Recently I’m doing a lot of upgrades, mostly because vSphere 6.0 end of general support is on.