Migration question

[Cedric BUSCHINI]

Hello everyone.

I am new to the community ( and to VMWare so it could a **** quuestion).

I am running a vCenter Server Appliance 7.0.3 and 3 ESXI HPE servers, running differents VMWare versions :

• A, B on ESXi 6.5 "VMware vSphere 6 Essentials Plus" license attached to both.
  (only B can be updated to 7.0U3).
• C on ESXi 7.0.3 (can be updated to 8) "vSphere 7 Essentials Plus" license attached .

I am planning to subscribe a vSphere standard 8 license to :

• update C to ESXi V8,
• affect the license V8 to C then free up the V7,
• affect the V7 to B.

I am not planning to update vCenter to 8.

Is that a good move ?
Thanks for your advices.
Cedders

[ggathagan]

Check the vmware interoperability matrix to be sure, but I don't believe
that an older version of vCenter server can administrate a newer version of
ESXi.

https://interopmatrix.vmware.com/Interoperability

Regards,
Grant

[StephenMoll]

Yes, vCenter MUST be updated first. It is backwards compatible with ESXi from earlier versions of vSphere. ESXi is NOT compatible earlier versions of vCenter.

Upgrading to vSphere 8 | VMware

Quote : "The vSphere upgrade sequence requires vCenter Server to be upgraded first, followed by the ESXi hosts."

[E_Espinel]

Hello.
a VCSA (Vcenter Server) version 8.0U3a can manage ESXi versions 6.7, 7.x and 8.x.
a VCSA version 7.x can only manage ESXi 6.7 and 7.x NOT ESXi 8.x
If you purchase a new vSphere 8 Essentials Plus Kit subscription license, it includes: 1 VCSA Essentials and Core based license (Kit includes 96 core licenses) for ESXi servers.
The ESXi server version 6.5 should be upgraded to 6.7 the version 6 license is the same, no change is required.
If you upgrade ESXi server version 7 to version 8 you will require a version 8 license (if you have a current contract, you can get it from Broadcom portal).

The old vSphere 7 Essentials Plus Kit included 1 vcenter server Essentials license and 3 ESXi server licenses.
A Vcenter Server Essentials can only manage 3 ESXi Server Essentials.

https://www.vmware.com/docs/vmw-datasheet-vsphere-product-line-comparison

------------------------------
Enrique Espinel F.
Freelance Senior Technical Specialist IBM, Lenovo, Veeam Backup and VMware vSphere VTSP-SV / VTSP-HCI
ISRAEL – Karmiel (UTC +3)
I speak Russian, Spanish Hebrew (basic) and a little English.
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[umarzuki]

Any showstoppers to not update vCenter 7 to 8?

[ggathagan]

To Umarzuki:

That's a very broad question, and the answer depends a lot on the individual circumstances.

As mentioned by several of us, vCenter 7 cannot manage ESXi 8 servers.
Additionally, vCenter/vSphere/ESXi 7.x reaches end-of-support-life next year and 6.x reached EOSL about a year ago.
If you're going to maintain support for your VMware products, you'll need to move to 8.

If you don't care about support, then you still need to consider the OS on the VM's you are running.
Older versions of ESXi may not support the OS version you wish to use on your VM.
If that's the case, then a need to move to a newer version of ESXi might require an upgrade of vCenter.

Another possibility depends largely on the version of your vCenter license,the complexity of the infrastructure components that are handled solely by vCenter server (vSphere HA, distributed networking, etc...) and the number of personnel who have limited access to your installation.

The original question involved moving from Essentials Plus to Standard.

As Enrique mentioned, a vCenter server with an Essentials Plus license cannot manage more than three servers.

In my particular case, I run the Essentials Plus license, don't have vSphere HA or any distributed networking implemented and only one other person has any sort of access to my installation.

As such, I found it easier to remove my ESXi servers from the vCenter 7 inventory, delete the vCenter 7 appliance, start from scratch with a new vCenter 8 appliance and add the ESXi servers back in to  the new appliance's inventory.
Adding the additional user and granting permissions to the appropriate VMs took all of 5 minutes.

Lastly, the upgrade process from one version of vCenter to another is not an in-place upgrade.
You have to create a new appliance, then migrate the data from the old vCenter server to the new.
As such, things like the FQDN of the vCenter server may come into play.

[Cedric BUSCHINI]

Hello.

Thank you for all your answers.

I have adjust my thinking !

Cheers,

[goldeneye_007]

Also be aware of any supporting software, like Veeam.

Good idea to contact those vendors to find out any gotchas.