Upgrade 5.5 to 6.0.0

We use DR site and SRM for protection our applications like SAP. Both data center used to single node vCenter server witch server served all VMware component: vCenter Server, SSO, Inventory Service and Web Client. It was a separate sso domain. In this year we have upgraded our VMware infrastrucuture from 5.5 to 6.0 and SRM too.

The recommendation says use external PSC to SRM envinronment. So we had to upgrade single vCenter servers to external PSC environment. Becosuse we hade to this i would have liked to use common SSO domain and Enhanced Linked Mode. The usage of this architecture are easier for Administrators and anybody else.

So in this article i will write about how you can do that.

First of all look where is the bigining and what is our goul. The picture below you can see, at the begining. We had two separated vCenter server and we can upgrade this envinroment to a totally different architecture. External PSC, Common SSO and Enhanced Linked Mode. Let’s start.

Here is official doccumentation of supported upgrade path:
http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.upgrade.doc/GUID-78B9F91E-36BE-4B76-B214-BF8229576C30.html

1 – Install two External PSC server each site (DC1 and DC2)
vCenter Server for Windows Requirements: http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-60/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-F072712B-F568-4C3A-A4BC-EE6856D50CDA.html

2 – Install first PSC server on DC1

3 – Install the other PSC server witch are going to join to common SSO domain and part of link (vsphere.local)

install_external_psc_006 — In this point you can join to PSC1 domain, Select “Join a vCenter Single Sign-On domain” and fill the fields.

install_external_psc_007 — Click to “OK” button

install_external_psc_008 — Create a new site name, in this eg.: Site2 (eg.: use geographically separation like LA)

install_external_psc_009 — This is a summary tab where you can review the final settings

Ok, now we have two Platform Service Controller in common SSO domain, and Enhanced Linked Mode configuration. Next step is we can pin our vCenter Servers to PSC servers. Becouse we used to single vCenter solution, we decided to uninstall the vCenter server from Windows exept SQL DB, and reinstall only vCenter role. You will see steps of resintall below.

!!!! Before you uninstall your vCenter Server role from OS, export all users and permission settings. I recommend for you this VMware Kb Article: https://kb.vmware.com/kb/0000172

We don’t use complex permission system, therefore we handle this by manul solution.

4 – Install vCenter Server whitch will be pin to PSC1-DC2

install_vcenter_server_002 — Add Platform Service Controller server where want to pin this vCenter Server (in this example PSC1-DC2.domain.loc)

install_vcenter_server_003 — In our environment we use a dedicated local user for Service Account

install_vcenter_server_004 — This is the DSN created earlier. Type User/Pass for connection to SQL DB

install_vcenter_server_005 — This is a very **IMPORTANT** step!!! You CAN choose “NO” or else your vCenter DB will be erese.

5 – Install the other vCenter server to PSC1-DC1

I don’t show the same steps as above, i will show you the only one different witch is you can type the other Platform Service Controller FQDN or IP address.