In Place Server 2012 R2 upgrade results VEEAM/VCENTER server

[davidb1234]

For those that might try this here is what is working for me so far.

HP DL380 G8
Running Server 2012 Standard
Veeam 7 update 1
VCENTER 5.1b
SQL 2012

PREREQUISITES: Removal virtual labs, disable vpowernfs, simplify the config as much as possible, fully update HP server with latest firmware/SPP

1. Take a backup using something like Acronis
2. I did not disable any services for Veeam/VCenter/SQL however I did uninstall Kaspersky Antivirus before doing this
3. Ran the in place 2012 R2 upgrade choosing to keep all programs and settings, this process went through several reboots before finally coming to a blank ILO screen, the server was online however the network team was dissolved and set to DHCP. After trying a bunch of stuff I eventually just powered off the server as I could not get RDP or iLO to work. Issuing a remote shutdown command resulted in an error message saying the server was already attempting a shutdown.
4. After this hard shutdown the server came back up just fine. Veeam appears to be working, services are started. VCENTER is also working with the exception of the VMware vSphere Web Client service which would not start any longer. I will remove this component and reinstall later.
5. Install HP Supplemental 2012 R2 driver/firmware pack for DL380 G8
6. Install Veeam 7 R2 patch and open up the console to upgrade components
7. Test backup jobs, TESTED OK!
8. Uninstall VMWARE VSphere Web Client(to be reinstalled later)

I can log in to HP Systems Management Homepage but it does not seem to be pulling info like serial/model/etc. I also see this repeated error in the event log:
Component: Software Version Agent
Error: Could not read from the registry sub-key.
Cause: This error can be caused by a corrupt registry or a low memory condition. Rebooting the server may correct this error.
I am researching this error and will report back my resolution. Likely an HP driver/software issue with 2012 R2.


This is as far as I have gotten today. I will be attempting to migrate VCENTER from 5.1b to 5.5a next and will report my steps here.

[davidb1234]

I repaired the HP Systems Management Homepage not populating data and the foundation agent warnings in the event log by uninstalling the HP Insight Management agent and just reinstall version 9.4. It worked immediately without reboot.

[davidb1234]

I migrated VCENTER from 5.1a to 5.5a successfully today. Ran in to a few issues which I have outlined here:

1. Make sure to copy c:\windows\system32\ocsetup.exe from another 2012(not R2) server to your 2012 R2 server(this is required and will blow up your vcenter 5.5 installation if you don't do this).

I did a manually upgrade upgrading each component one at a time following the proper order. There was no issues during the upgrade procedure.

I ran in to two problems after the upgrade:

Profile Driver Storage/Storage Monitoring service for vcenter would not initialize. I resolved it by changing the service credentials per this article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=2060967

Update Manager could not see the database and would not enable the plugin. I resolved it by changing the service credentials per this article: http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/micros ... Id=1015223

Other than these minor bumps and bruises I have run a few backups and everything is looking good. No errors in the event log.

I now have successfully migrated from 2012, Veeam 7, Vcenter 5.1a => 2012 R2, Veeam 7 R2, and Vcenter 5.5a

[davidb1234]

I wanted to also cleanup the windows.old folder left on the root of C:\ after the 2012 R2 upgrade. There are symbolic links in this folder all over the place. Here is the steps I used to clean this up without issue.

The alternative way is to install desktop experience and use Disk Cleanup to remove the old installation files. I did not want to install desktop experience however.

First I removed all junction points and symbolic links. To do this I used junction.exe from SysInternals. Copy the exe into a directory in your path. I ran it to get a list of all junctions:

Code: Select all

c:\tools\junction.exe -s -q C:\windows.old > %temp%\junc.txt

I opened a PowerShell:

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start powershell.exe

and ran the following script to find the relevant lines and execute junction.exe again:

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 foreach ($line in [System.IO.File]::ReadLines("$env:temp\junc.txt"))
 {
     if ($line -match "^\\\\")
     {
         $file = $line -replace "(: JUNCTION)|(: SYMBOLIC LINK)",""
         & c:\tools\junction.exe -d "$file"
     }
 }

This removed all junction points and the single symbolic link on my system.
back in cmd.exe I now executed three commands to clear permissions and delete all files:

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 takeown /F C:\windows.old /R /D Y
 cacls C:\windows.old /T /G Everyone:F
 rd /s /q C:\windows.old

Windows.old is now gone and the system is running fine with all old junction targets intact. This was tested on 2012 => 2012 R2 migration.

[kmount]

Hi David,

Thanks for your post, interesting notes to bear in mind.

Cheers,

Kim

[davidb1234]

Your welcome. We typically put VCENTER and VEEAM on the same physical server in our implementations and it has worked out pretty well this way. I don't know how many other people run like this but I thought this might be helpful for others.