Host-based backup of VMware vSphere VMs.
Post Reply
Keyser
Enthusiast
Posts: 50
Liked: 9 times
Joined: Feb 13, 2014 10:11 am
Contact:

Upgrade to vSphere 6 - how?

Post by Keyser »

Hi

Once patch 2 and vSphere 6 support comes along, i'm planning to upgrade my testlab (one server) to test things, but I actually have quite a few VM's running in my lab, so a couple of questions about the upgrade arises:

Updating Veeam to Patch 2 is a non issue but:

1: When I "migrate/update" my vCenter Virtual Appliance to the vSphere 6 appliance, will that work transparently for Veeam as the new appliance has the same name and config as the old appliance?

The next step is upgrading my ESXi but:

2: For several different reasons i'm hoping to reinstall ESXi from scratch instead of upgrading it. But reinstalling it means a loss of config and inventory.
If I choose to reinstall, I'm going to have to add the VM's to inventory again from scratch to be able to power up the vCenter appliance.
As far as I can tell this will cause vCenter to see the host and the VM's as new entites, and cause Veeam jobs to stop working and require me to change my backup jobs to include the "new" VM's. Is that correct?

What I'm trying to avoid at all cost is the need to run a new full backup of my testlab VM's. I want the incremental forever to continue where it left the VM in 5.5U2. Is that possible?

-Keyser
foggy
Veeam Software
Posts: 21069
Liked: 2115 times
Joined: Jul 11, 2011 10:22 am
Full Name: Alexander Fogelson
Contact:

Re: Upgrade to vSphere 6 - how?

Post by foggy »

Keyser, your understanding is correct. As far as VM moref IDs do not change during your upgrade procedures, you're fine and should not get into any issues. In case of re-registering VMs in VI, their IDs will change and you would need to re-add VMs into jobs, causing a subsequent full backup.
Keyser
Enthusiast
Posts: 50
Liked: 9 times
Joined: Feb 13, 2014 10:11 am
Contact:

Re: Upgrade to vSphere 6 - how?

Post by Keyser »

I understand this issue only exists for one ESXi host solutions as vmotion could solve the problem by always having one host and therefore vcenter online.

Are there's no workarounds I can use to reinstall ESXi if I don't want a new full backup?
I'm thinking:
1: some kind of host config backup that can be restored to the new vSphere 6.0 host so VM ID's does not change.
2: some way to map existing backupfiles/jobs for a VM to a new VM ID.
dellock6
VeeaMVP
Posts: 6137
Liked: 1928 times
Joined: Jul 26, 2009 3:39 pm
Full Name: Luca Dell'Oca
Location: Varese, Italy
Contact:

Re: Upgrade to vSphere 6 - how?

Post by dellock6 »

Keyser, don't you have at least another ESXi? If you can move the VM into another host during ESXi upgrades moref will be kept. If you don't have vmotion in your license you can leverage Veeam Quick Migration.
Luca Dell'Oca
Principal EMEA Cloud Architect @ Veeam Software

@dellock6
https://www.virtualtothecore.com/
vExpert 2011 -> 2022
Veeam VMCE #1
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 80 guests