SRM 5.5 to 5.8 Upgrade
January 14, 2015If you’ve got SRM 5.5 installed and you want to get the new SRM 5.8 code into your environment, don’t worry. The upgrade process is pretty easy to manage. The important thing to note is the upgrade order and of course your compatibility matrix. Remember that you need vCenter 5.5 U2 or higher to get SRM 5.8 working.
Upgrade Order
- Ensure your vCenter Server and Web Client are on 5.5 U2 or higher in the protected site. If not, upgrade them!
- Upgrade vSphere Replication on the protected site to 5.8 if you’re using one.
- Upgrade SRM on the protected site to 5.8
- Upgrade your SRA on the protected site if you’re using one.
- Ensure your vCenter Server and Web Client are on 5.5 U2 or higher in the recovery site. If not, upgrade them!
- Upgrade vSphere Replication on the recovery site to 5.8 if you’re using one.
- Upgrade SRM on the recovery site.
- Upgrade your SRA on the recovery site if you’re using one.
- Verify the conneciton between your sites is valid, protection groups still exist and recovery plans are in tact.
- Upgrade ESXi servers on the recovery site
- Upgrade ESXi servers on the protected site
- Upgrade VMware Tools.
Install
Run the installer on the SRM servers. The installer should detect that SRM is already installed an that an upgrade will be performed.
Just like an full install, we’ll get some legal patent information.
Agree to the terms of use.
Just like with a full install, you’ll be given the opportunity to look at the prerequisites again.
Update the install location if you wish. Click Next.
Enter the vCenter credentials to register with the vCenter server.
Update the Administrator email, local host and any ports if you wish. The local site name will not be editable. Click Next.
Choose whether to use the automatically generated certificates or load a custom certificate. Remember that if your vCenter uses a custom certificate, you’ll need to use a custom certificate in your install of SRM as well.
Enter some information to generate the certificate, or browse to your certificate if you’ve got a custom one.
You may change the database connection count if you wish. The DSN will be hard coded.
Important!!!! Leave this setting at “Use existing data” or you’ll erase your current SRM config.
Enter your service account information. Click Next.
Enjoy the upgrade process by clicking Install.
Summary
The upgrade is pretty easy as long as you’ve got your certificates in place and the prerequisites done. Upgrading vCenter and the replication appliances will probably be the bottleneck.
Is There any harm with upgrading ESXi before SRM?
No, you can upgrade esxi at your leisure. Srm doesn’t care about the version of esxi, only the vcenter server. Feel free to upgrade esxi before srm if you’d like.
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Does the upgrade order matter is your two sites are active/active with both sites being protected and recovery with separate recovery plans?
You should be able to upgrade them in any order really, but be prepared for your SRM solution to not be able to fail things over until both version match again.
There is a dependency to connect ESXi servers to vCenter server though. VCenter has to be upgraded before the ESXi servers.
Thank u for the visual upgrade sequence! We will be doing this in a couple of weeks.
Absolutely correct. Standard VMware vSphere upgrade order still applies.
Hello,
Do your order apply on a 5.0 to 5.5 upgrade procedure please ?
The upgrade order should be applicable to other versions as well.
Keep in mind though, that between 5.0 to 5.5 you introduce VMware Single Sign-On which should be properly handled based on VMware’s documentation.
Do you remember at which step the SSO installation step could be inserted into your list when upgrading from 5.0 to 5.5 ?
I miss also the the vCenter upgrade to the target version (5.8) step in your list (primary and second site). where it should be intended please ?
Planning to upgrade vCenter to 5.5 u2e along with SRM5.8 and VR5.8
We have EMC Clarion as Storage Array and EMC SE configured with many Local consistency groups.
1. Is it required to upgrade the EMC SE as well?
2. What will be impact on Protection group and Recovery plans, will they still be available after upgrade?
I would check with EMC about the Storage array questions. As far as the protection groups and recovery plans go, they should still be available post upgrade. Of course I always say “Should”. 🙂
We have a shared recovery site for two different protected sites. We need to upgrade only a pair (protected and one of the recovery instance in a shared site) to 5.8 but possibly leaving the other “pair” to the current version 5.5.1
Do you know if it’s a supported matrix?
I cannot find any document about it.
I don’t know if that is supported or not. Any input from readers here is welcomed.
VMware recommends pairing the site at same level. I don’t think one site being at down level gona work.