There are a lot of new exciting features that are released with vSphere 7 especially on vCenter Server 7. Many new features such as vCenter Update Planner, vCenter Server profiles, Content library template versioning, multi nic support for vCenter server are released with vSphere 7. After you have upgraded the other VMware products such as VMware Site Recovery Manager, vSphere Replication, VMware NSX-V, VMware NSX-T, and vRealize automation, etc. to the compatible version with vSphere 7.0. You can take a look at my article vSphere 7 Pre-Upgrade Checks to check the pre-upgrade checks before upgrading the vCenter Server. The next step is to upgrade vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0. In this article, I will explain the detailed step by step procedure to Upgrade vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0
You can upgrade the vCenter Server appliance from version 6.5 or 6.7 to version 7.0. If your current vCenter Server appliance is version 6.0 or earlier, you must upgrade to version 6.5 or 6.7 before upgrading to version 7.0
Take a look at the detailed video to talks about a detailed step by step procedure to deploy the vCenter Server 7.0 appliance. Please do subscribe to the VMware Arena’s Youtube Channel
How to Upgrade vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0
The upgrade process of the vCenter Server 7 is exactly similar to the previous versions of the vCenter server. Currently, my vCenter server is running with the version vCenter server 6.7.
Before upgrading the vCenter server,
- Take a snapshot of the vCenter server appliance VM
- Ensure you have the latest backup of the vCenter server appliance
- Rename the existing vCenter server appliance (vCenter server 6.7) VM to something like “vmname-6.7” or “vmname-old”. This old VM will be powered off after the upgrade. New VM with same name will be deployed.
- Keep one Temporary IP address from the same subnet as the vCenter server 6.7 is deployed
Download the vCenter Server 7.0 installer to Upgrade vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0. In the vCenter Server installer, navigate to the vcsa-ui-installer directory, go to the subdirectory for your operating system, and run the installer executable file.
Click Upgrade to upgrade an existing vCenter server appliance or Upgrade and converge an existing vCenter server appliance with an external platform services controller. My vCenter server is an embedded PSC deployment.
When you upgrade vCenter Server 6.5 or 6.7 with an external Platform Services Controller to vCenter Server 7.0, the upgrade process converges the external Platform Services Controller into the new vCenter Server Appliance. The new vCenter Server contains all Platform Services Controller services, preserving the functionality and workflows, including authentication, certificate management, and licensing. It is no longer necessary nor possible to upgrade and use an external Platform Services Controller.
vCenter Upgrade is a two-stage process.
Stage 1: Deploy vCenter Server
This stage 1 will walk you through the deployment wizard to get the deployment type of the source appliance that you want to upgrade and configure the new appliance settings. During this stage, you deploy the new appliance with temporary network settings. This stage finishes the deployment of the OVA file on the target server with the same deployment type as the source appliance and the appliance settings that you provide.
In the Introduction Page, Click Next to continue.
Accept the end-user license agreement and click Next.
Provide the details for the source vCenter Server appliance which you want to upgrade to vCenter 7.0. Enter the FQDN name of the vCenter server appliance and click CONNECT TO SOURCE.
Provide the SSO & root (appliance OS root password) credentials of the vCenter server appliance and also provide the ESXi host or vCenter server along with the username and credentials that manage the source vCenter appliance. Click Next.
Accept the certificate warning by click on Yes.
Specify the vCenter server deployment target settings. The target is the ESXi host or vCenter server instance on which the new vCenter server appliance will be deployed. Enter the SSO username and credentials. Click Next.
Select the datacenter or VM folder to create the vCenter server appliance VM. Click Next.
Specify the VM name for the vCenter server appliance VM and set the root password for the appliance. You can specify the same VM name as old vCenter VM if you have renamed the existing vCenter server appliance (vCenter server 6.7) VM to something like “vmname-6.7” or “vmname-old” as specified in the start of this article. These old vCenter server VM will be powered off in the stage2. Click Next.
Select the deployment size for the vCenter server. You can select the default storage size or modify the storage size for the deployment. Click Next.
Select the datastore to deploy the vCenter server 7.0 appliance. Click Next.
Select the port group from the drop-down for the vCenter server VM to connect to and specify the temporary network settings.
This temporary network settings will be applied to the newly deployed vCenter server 7.0 appliance. This temporary network will be used to migrate the data from the old vCenter server 6.7 to vCenter Server 7.0. Once data is migrated to the newly deployed vCenter server, it preserves the existing IP settings as same as the old vCenter server appliance. Click Next.
Review all the settings provided in the stage 1. Click Finish to start the deployment of the vCenter server 7.0 appliance VM.
It will take few minutes to complete the deployment of the vCenter server 7.0 appliance.
Once the vCenter server appliance is deployed, Click Continue to start the stage 2.
Stage 2: vCenter Server Upgrade Process
Stage 2 will complete the upgrade process by copying the data from the source vCenter server appliance (6.7) to the deployed vCenter server (7.0). In the Introduction page of the stage 2, Click Next
Select the Upgrade data that you want to copy from the source vCenter Server. This is the lab environment, I don’t need to migrate the tasks & events and the performance data. So I have selected the option “Configuration and Inventory“. Click Next.
If you need the additional data like tasks and events and Performance data of the vCenter, you can choose the other options as well. Data size varies for each of the options.
Select the checkbox to “Join the VMware’s Customer Experience Improvement Program(CEIP) and click Next.
Review the settings and click Finish to start stage 2 of the vCenter server upgrade.
The source vCenter Server VM will be shut down once the network configuration is enabled on the destination vCenter Server. Click OK to continue.
Once the stage 2 of the vCenter server upgrade is completed, The entire vCenter upgrade process is completed. Click close to exit from the vCenter installer GUI.
Access the vCenter server using the URL https://<vCenter-name or IP>.
You may notice that there is no web client option because only HTML 5 client is available from the vCenter server 7. Click Launch vSphere Client and log in with your credentials.
Select the vCenter server -> Summary to check the current vCenter server version. Our vCenter server is upgraded from vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0.
That’s it. we are done with the upgrade of vCenter 6.7 to vCenter 7.0. I hope this article is informative for you. Thanks for reading!!!. Be social and share it with social media, if you feel worth sharing it.