Recommendations for updating vCenter on W2008.
Prior to 5.1, I never really messed with our vCenter servers in terms of updates. They were loaded, then left alone until we upgraded to a totally new version in which I would rebuild the vCenter servers. However, 5.1 has had update after update and has led to some vCenters running different versions. So far, this has not caused any compatibility problems but I would really like to have everything running the same version.
That said, there doesn't seem to be any easy way to patch. I don't see any options for updating vCenter with VUM (our vCenters run on Win2008, not the appliance) and from what I've found online, it looks like you have to run the newest installer on top of the old one to do the update.
I want to know if there is a best practice or a general consensus on how to do this and of course, any caveats to be aware of.
Posted Sep 13, 2013, 3:22 PM UTC
It's relatively straight forward. I would say that it is important to take a backup of your SQL database that run your vCenters. After you take a backup of SQL just run the new installers and it will literally walk you step by step through the upgrade process. I, knock on wood, have never run into any problems upgrading a vCenter server.
Let me know if you have any other questions!