Our VMware vSphere 6.5: What’s New webcast last November was the first in our three-part series designed to help you upgrade to vSphere 6.5. Andrew Ellwood, a Sr. Staff Education Portfolio Manager answered many questions during the event, and we picked some of the most interesting ones here. You can read them all and/or watch the full webcast replay.
With HA, do you need to pin the VCSA to a host? Or can DRS still move it?
DRS can move it and VCHA will enable DRS rules automatically if available.
Instead of migrating our environment, can I build a new VCSA 6.5 and then connect our nodes to it and still get all the benefits?
You can, but you may lose some data (Historical Perf and Task/Event Data) and also any Distributed Switch data.
For migration purposes, can I vMotion my VMs from my ESXI 5.5 u3 to a ESXI 6.5 U1 host within the same cluster?
Yes, that’s fully supported during the upgrade process, but once that’s done you’ll want your clusters to be as homogeneous as possible.
If I upgrade a standalone 6.5 then can I use the HA functionality afterwards?
Yes – VCHA can be enabled for all VCSA 6.5 deployment topologies.
I presume the migration tool will also take folders and permissions with it?
Correct. Everything that makes VC a VC is migrated.
When upgrading to 6.5 from 5.5 will it suggest the sizing required (tiny, small, etc) based on the existing 5.5 environment?
Yes – the sizing will be auto-calculated and the best size will be offered. But you can always tweak to a bigger size during the upgrade.
Is there a tool included to install certificates from our own (windows) CA?
Absolutely. It’s built into the appliance.
Is this possible to move VMs from 6 to 6.5 platform
Yes it is. You can manage your ESXi 6 hosts with a vCenter 6.5 system. vMotion will be fully supported in that case, as long as you meet all of the other vMotion requirements.
For migration: if existing vCenters are in Enhanced linked mode, will it stay after migration in linked mode, or will the ELM be removed during the process?
Yes, the topology will not change during a migration or upgrade. It is retained.
When upgrading hosts to 6.5, can a cluster contain both 6.0 and 6.5 hosts and function properly?
It is supported to have a cluster with both ESXi 6.0 and 6.5, but best practice is to maintain a cluster of the same version when possible.
Is there a limit of VMs you can classify with highest startup policy?
No. Any VMs classified as HIGHEST will restart at the same time.
What is the best way to revert back if the upgrade from vCenter 6.0 on Windows to VCSA 6.5 fails?
If the migration process fails, the source Windows VC is untouched. You just need to power back on the source Windows VC machine (you may need to re- join it to AD).
We also received many questions about upgrading from one version to v6.5. The answer from the team was almost universally to refer people to the Upgrade Guide.
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