How to Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7

How to Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 – Stage 2

In a previous article (How to Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 – Stage 1) I walked through the first phase of the upgrade process for vCSA 6.7 (embedded deployment) – Deploy the OVA File of the new vCenter Server Appliance with an embedded Platform Services Controller. In this article I will cover phase 2 of the vCenter upgrade – transfer the data and setup the newly deployed vCenter Server Appliance.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 – Stage 2

In the last step of the phase 1, I was presented with the following screen:

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Deploy VCSA Completed

To start phase 2, I clicked on “Continue” button from the upper image, just to stare at a blanc screen:

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Installer

This may have something to do with the computer I ran the wizard from, but the simplest workaround was to just start a Chrome session and point it to the URL presented in the first image. I was presented with same familiar interface. As we upgrade a vCSA deployment, click on “Upgrade”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Upgrade

We then have to enter root credentials for vCSA and click “Log In”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Login vCenter

There’s a short introduction, all we need to do is click “Next”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Introduction

We need to enter now credentials to connect to the source vCenter Server instance and to the ESXi host that manages the source vCSA. Click “Next” when complete.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Credentials

The wizard will now save the parameters and will run  pre-upgrade checks. Make sure you read and understand the warnings you may receive before moving on. In my case, I had few warnings about disabling fully automated DRS and certain configuration files which will not be copied over. Click “Close”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Check Result

We then need to select which data will be transferred to the new instance. I left the default (Configuration, no historical data). Click “Next”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Select Upgrade Data

Now we need to decide if we enroll into CEIP – VMware Customer Experience Improvement Program. If you don’t know how this can help, Duncan Epping has a nice demo of what vSAN support team can do when CEIP is enabled (How to simplify vSAN support!). Click “Next”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Configure CEIP

We can now check all the choices we made. We need to confirm we have a backup of the source systems and we can click on “Finish”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Ready to Complete

Are we sure? Yes we do 🙂 Click “OK”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Shutdown Warning

Data transfer will start immediately. We are now at the first step (Copy data from source vCenter Server to target vCenter Server). Wizard will pass through different stages (preparing source system for exporting data, exporting data for different services, shutting down source machine, applying network configuration). After this step the original vCSA 6.5 is powered off.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Data Transfer

First step is completed, moving to the second step now – Set up target vCenter Server and start services. This starts one by one all vCenter services – you may watch the progress as displayed in the wizard.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Setup Target vCenter

Finally, the third and last step imports copied data to the target vCenter. Wizard will stop few services, then will import data, and will execute post-upgrade actions.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Import Copied Data

Read and understand the messages displayed. When done, click “Close”.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Messages

Upgrade is complete now. You can find a link to vCSA Getting Started page. Click on it.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Stage 2 Complete

We can see the appliance start page now, with the well-known links to the two vSphere Clients.

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - Launch Page

And here is the HTML5 web client of vSphere 6.7!

Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 - vCenter

Enjoy the upgrade to vCenter Server 6.7 🙂

Constantin Ghioc

I usually play with vSphere API, Ansible, vRealize Automation, vRealize Orchestrator, and different AWS tools. In my other life I’m a husband and a father, an amateur photographer and a Go enthusiast.

3 thoughts to “How to Upgrade vCenter Server Appliance from 6.5 to 6.7 – Stage 2”

  1. Hi Constantin,
    I’m trying to upgrade vCSA 6.5 to 6.7 but I got an error on Pre-upgrade check and to resolve this issue I should regenerate certificates for sso and try again. Strange thing that I replaced my machine cert and during this stage I got a successful message that all services changed with the new certificate. Strange thing is that the following URL https://myvcsa.fqdn.com:7444/sso-adminserver/sdk/vsphere.local shows the old certificate. I cannot find the procedure on how to change it just on that service.

  2. Is it OK to remove the old 6.5 vmserver after a successful upgrade from 6.5 to 6.7? If so, is there any particular process to do this?

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