So I have completed my first ESX 3.0 upgrade even if it only a dev host! As stated in the previous article, we upgraded virtualcenter to 2.0 which went relatively smoothly and then I proceeded on to a clean install of ESX 3.0 on my dev host. Before I could do this I had to migrate the dev servers off the host to another location. This is the basic steps that the upgrade took on it's way to completion. There are some tips and tricks from this upgrade that I would like to share for the regular readers of this blog, so read on.

The first point that I would like to make, and this applied in ESX 2.x as well is to make sure that if you are doing a clean rebuild of a host that you de-zone it from the san before you fly into the erase all data on disk section. It could get nasty quickly and the last thing we want is for you to be writing your resume.

After migrating my dev servers off the dev host, I then did a clean install of ESX. A clean install was chosen for a number of reasons which include a root partition that was not large enough for the upgrade. The process was easy and seamless but was taken slowly due to my ESX SOE development at the same time. Once the host was built, there were a few things that needed to be done in VirtualCenter to the host configuration before the build was complete. These included :

• Adding the host into virtualcenter - nothing unusual here. Expected and was pretty straight forward.
• Configuring the host license allocation - making sure it was licensed with all the expected features
• Configuring the network settings on the host - a lot easier with the nice graphical representation but take your time and learn the networking section of VirtualCenter and esx. It is a lot more powerful.
• Zone the host on the san and rescan for new luns.
• Adding the host to the correct cluster for it's datacenter.

There were a few more tweaks which will be included in the upcoming build process.

After this, I wanted to get my dev servers back on the dev host. First thing was first and I formatted both my new dev luns as VMFS3. After the luns were visible, I performed a cold migration of the vm's from the ESX2 host and the vmfs 2 lun they were sitting on to the new ESX 3 and vmfs 3 lun.

Once the migration was complete, the next step was to upgrade the virtual hardware. The virtual hardware upgrade went easily and quickly but when I went to turn the machines on I found my first problem. The network settings for the vm's had vanished. After a quick look in the RTFM upgrade guide and the VMware community forums I saw this was a common problem. The solution was just to drop down, select the correct network and apply it.

All the vm's were now migrated, virtual hardware upgraded and running. The next thing was to install the vmware tools. This can be done in a mass process while the machines are turned off, but I chose to hand massage it and watch the install. So one by one I upgraded the vmtools on the machines, this has now been completed.

So we have our first ESX 3 host running with the vm's on it. Now I am just working on finalising the build process and procedures. Once that is done I can consider finalising the production upgrade plan and steaming ahead. Keep your ears tuned for further updates.