HPE SPP upgrade before vSphere 6.5 U3 to 7.0 U3

[BenciHu]

Hello All!

I have to work a bit old vSphere cluster and I'm planning to upgrade it. However, as like the VMWare products are old, the firmware versions on the HPE Gen10 server are also old (back to 2018).

I was checking the SPP - VMWare ESXi matrix and I found for the latest HP Custom ESXi image (2023 Sept) the SPP 2023.09.00 is recommended.

AFAIK, the upgrade path is SPP -> vCenter -> ESXi, but I'm not sure if I can update the firmware with 5 yrs, while the ESXis will still run with 6.5 U3 (2022 April). Is that possible to jump as high? Can I do the SPP upgrade at once or do I have to iterate through different SPP versions?

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
I recommend you to upgrade the hardare with a 2022 (latest) SPP, if you are going to keep vmware 6.5 for a while longer.
To migrate to VMware 7.0 I recommend a new installation, as the partitioning scheme changes.
As always you should have a full backup of the VMs before any upgrade work on VMware.

https://core.vmware.com/resource/esxi-system-storage-changes#section1

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/85685?lang=en_US&source=email

 

 

[Rob Bishop]

I'd be wary of upgrading the SPP whilst still running 6.5U3 as very few people will have tested this combination and you don't know what bugs you may find, you'll get very little support for 6.5 if it's believed to be related to the firmware upgrade.

My recommendation would be to incorporate it into your upgrade process, as mentioned best practise would be to totally re-provision the ESXi host due the partitioning scheme changes.

So process would be 

1. Evacuate VM's from host

2. Apply latest firmware

3. Install new version of ESXi overwriting original, remember to use the HPE OEM version to get all the extra HPE VIB's etc.

4. Patch ESXi with latest updates

 

[BenciHu]

Thank you  and  both of you for the answers!

I was checking that the SPP 2022.03 is the latest which still supports 6.5U3. So if I understand correctly, I would have to upgrade to this firmware which would be safe for 6.5U3 and is eligible to upgrade safely to 7.0U3. Later I can upgrade to latest SPP if I have already ESXi running with 7.0U3.

So please confirm, that the upgrade procedure would be:

1. Apply 2022.03 SPP
2. Upgrade vCenter to 7.0U3
3. Upgrade/Reinstall ESXi to 7.0U3 with HP custom image
4. Apply ESXi 7.0U3 latest patches
5. Apply 2023 latest SPP

Is this the recommended way?

Thank you for your help again!

[Rob Bishop]

HI ,

That looks like a practical way to progress to me. There are some specific firmware versions for 7.0 so don't leave it too long before applying the latest SPP.

 

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
your plan is good, but always remember to have a complete backup of the VMs and all the details of the esxi host configuration (ip address servers, gateway, and more).