Upgrade from vSphere 5.5

[ejleipold]

Hi All,

I'm currently running an vSphere 5.5 cluster that I guess I need to upgrade (I've been putting it off as 5.5 has been super-stable over the past 3-4 years and we havent needed any of the extra bells and whistles of the newer versions).

Currently running Veeam B&R 9.5.0.1922, what version of vSphere do people recommend I move to?

I'm more interested in reliability over bells and whistles.

[Regnor]

In my opinion the best version at the moment is 6.5U1, both from stability and it's feature set.
Be aware that 6.5U2 still has some problems, so I would only go up to U1:
https://forums.veeam.com/vmware-vsphere ... 50701.html

6.7 also seems stable but I've only seen a small number of customers using it currently.

[ejleipold]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was afraid of. I've seen a few posts about 6.5 being a bit buggy.

Like I said I always prefer reliability/stability over feature set!

[Regnor]

It's not 6.5 in general only U2 has some backup problems, which Veeam currently is working on and a workaround is available.

[DGrinev]

Hey Evan,

I vote for vSphere 6.5 Update 1 as it was mentioned as rock solid in the big thread about 6.5 U2. Thanks!

[Frosty]

We just recently (last 2 months) moved away from vSphere 5.5 and we have also chosen 6.5 U1 as our starting point for some new servers/storage infrastructure.
6.5 U1 has been very stable for us so far, so just last week I moved the last VMs across and shut down my old vCenter VM and hosts.
I'm waiting for a few months of "no bug reports" before considering 6.7 ... and we've avoided "hot add" problems with Veeam by delaying upgrades (I usually wait 6 months!).

[ctg49]

I'd personally recommend just pushing for 6.7. If you're going to update, might as well push all the way to the top while you're in there, and the greatly simplified infrastructure/deployment of 6.7 as well as the full HTML5 client support have been absolutely great.

Just make sure you get that hotadd hotfix

[skrause]

I'd personally recommend just pushing for 6.7. If you're going to update, might as well push all the way to the top while you're in there, and the greatly simplified infrastructure/deployment of 6.7 as well as the full HTML5 client support have been absolutely great.

Just make sure you get that hotadd hotfix

A heads up to people thinking of going straight to 6.7, you should check that everything you have on the backend supports vSphere 6.7. Our primary storage (IBM V7000 Gen1) does not support 6.7 and we have been told there are no plans to.

[ejleipold]

I never really like going to the bleeding edge in my production environment, it's rarely worth it. I prefer the latest patch on a previous major version.

[nev]

Hello,

While I'm pretty sure this question was already discussed many times in some aspects before I still want to ask it in separate thread so I do apologies in advance if it will be too duplicate...

As many users due to recent EoS of vsphere 5.5. We are planning migration from vSphere 5.5 to some 6.x version which will eliminate the necessity to upgrade one more time in the nearest future due to known VMware bug or issues. Luckily we are completely not interested in new functionality in 6.x in comparison to 5.5 so its just a question of most stable and unbuggy release of 6.x due to this moment.
One more concern regarding this is that 6.x release we will upgrade to should be supported to directly upgrade from 5.5 if possible.

Many thanks in advance!
Nikolay

[DGrinev]

Hello Nikolay and welcome to the community!

You're right, the said topic has been discussed recently.
The most stable version is 6.5 update 1 at least for now.
Please review this discussion for additional information. Thanks!

[nev]

Hello DGrinev,

Many thanks for the post merge and the info!
However to the moment there are several patches for 6.5 U1 version branch and also there are more recent versions in 6.5 branch for example 6.5U2 and the latest available build for 6.5 version is - ESXi 6.5 EP 11 which I suppose includes all patches for U2 and contains some more. I do not want to migrate to 6.7 to be honest as there were too many warnings in official Gostev newsletters for 6.7 branch so trying to find most stable and unbuggy 6.5 version...

Many thanks in advance!
Nikolay

[foggy]

Hi Nikolay, please note that 6.5U2 support is also limited.

[nev]

Good to know, foggy! So this narrows down my potential choice only to 6.5 U1 code branch.
As far as I see here: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2143832 the latest version for U1 is ESXi 6.5 U1g
Any known issues related to this version?

Many thanks!
Nikolay

[foggy]

No.

[nev]

OK, Perfect. I carefully read the link.
And my last question: what are drawbacks for pure fully patched 6.7 version? Not 6.7 U1. It looks like it is also quite stable.

[foggy]

Yes, it is fully supported and looks pretty stable.

[nev]

The problem is that it looks like there is no more vcenter distributive available for pure 6.7 from vmware account - only 6.7U1.
Can you please tell me, in the Veeam supported versions matrix do the versions of vsphere relate only to ESXi or to vcenter code as well?

[DGrinev]

Hi Nikolay,

There is a known issue appears with the vCenter 6.7 U1, but fortunately we have a hotfix.
You will find the description and the hotfix in the first post by Gostev, also review the whole discussion for additional information. Thanks!

[nev]

Hi Dmitry,

Thank you for the info, but according to the Veeam support matrix, previously mentioned by your colleague, vSphere v 6.7U1 is officially unsupported :
https://www.veeam.com/kb2443

So in this connection my question was: if my hosts' ESXi version will be 6.7GA with the latest patch and vCenter will be 6.1U1 (which is the only version of vCenter officially available at the moment in the 6.7 version branch as far as I understand) will it mean that my configuration will be officially unsupported? In other words: does vCenter version also counts in support requirements in this Veeam matrix or only ESXi version does? This question was mentioned in the discussion you sent but still was not fully answered as I see.

So what good of this workaround if the target version will be still officially unsupported? I think it is for those cases when people are forced for some reason to use latest vSphere versions but still want to maintain their Veeam backups without issues. In my case I can use any version 6.x but just want to understand which is the most stable at the moment.

[DGrinev]

That's correct, vSphere 6.7U1 is officially unsupported in the current version of Veeam B&R.
The official support is coming in our next Veeam B&R Update 4.

The most stable version at the moment was mentioned in this thread earlier and that is 6.5 Update 1. Thanks!

[Alan_ORiordan]

Apologies for this noob question:

I have never upgraded a VMware host version before. I plan to upgrade from V5.5 to V6.5 on standalone hosts from the command line. After doing this, when first opening Veeam on each backup server will it simply detect the change and update components or is there a missing step which may stop the backup and replication jobs starting back from where they left off.

Thanks

[Dima P.]

Hello Alan,

I've merged your post to existing thread. To cut the long story short: that should work without any issues. Cheers!