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ESXi 5.0 Upgrade using VUM

I recently upgraded a clients View environment as well as their vCenter server and its SQL DB. The upgrades have gone without a glitch so far.

I am ready to upgrade both of our hosts from 4.1 U1 to 5, but want to confirm that performing this remotely using VUM will work.

I read online that each Host will reboot after 5 minutes rather than having to actually be onsite and hit enter. Is this correct?

The hosts have DRM/HA but I am not concerned about keeping them on. I will be doing the upgrade after hours so unless the vCenter/VUM server needs to stay on for the process should I just tell them to shutoff during the upgrade? What should I chose for the power options of the VMs if not shutdown...
Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Unfortunately, you cannot use VUM to perform an upgrade from 4.1 to 5.0.

You will need to use the ESX 5.0  cdrom media in the servers cdrom drive, and perform an inplace upgrade.

Check your servers are on the HCL, and use the correct version HP, Dell, IBM etc or VMware version.
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Hmm...not to say your not correct, but I have found multiple articles saying that it is possible and works just fine as well as the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix....
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Hit enter before I meant to...I also loaded the upgrade file in VUM and it accepted it, found the hosts, and other than a couple third party drivers I don't need did not detect any problems.
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Avatar of Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
Andrew Hancock (VMware vExpert PRO / EE Fellow/British Beekeeper)
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Did you have problems with it in the past? I am also still looking for confirmation on the automatic reboot by the hosts as well as the recommended power options for the VMs during the upgrade...
the host will need to be restarted after the upgrade, if you put the hosts to be upgraded into maintenance mode, the VMs will be migrated to other hosts, upgrade the hosts, restart, and all should be done in a 20 minute time window.
Yes, VUM would hang the hosts and the upgrade killed the servers.

VUM would sit their for hours, and not complete.
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Just to update...I didnt think i would hear back from VMware this fast...they can be pretty great sometimes...

"As per your question below.  Update Manger will push the updates to the host and the host will reboot after 5 minutes.  It could take upwards of 30 Minutes for the upgrade to proceed, if you have remote capabilities you can monitor the progress of the upgrade.  For the HA options it depends on how you want HA to manage the VMs.  You can select power off in the event of a host isolation event."

Hope this helps anyone else with this question in the future!
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Han....how many times did you run into this problem?
ALL the time, hence we do not do it anymore, and use media, and perform in place upgrades from iso, with Dell and HP, IBM servers. Just as quick, although manual.

Are you using Dell, IBM or HP servers, and OEM versions of ESXi?
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Dell...and yes...just OEM version of ESXi...nothing custom or added...
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Late post, but using vum worked just fine...thanks for the feedback!