VMware has released a paper titled: VMware vSphere 5.0 Upgrade Best Practices. The paper which contains 46 pages provides an overview of the ESXi 5.0 upgrade process and provides recommendations for a smooth and seamless transition. With this release, users have the ability to do an in-place upgrade from ESX 4.x to ESXi 5.0.
The paper covers the following topics:
- Introduction, covering what’s new, what’s no longer supported and how to obtain licenses for version 5.0
- Upgrading to VMware vCenter Server 5.0, covering planning, requirements, backup and several upgrade scenario’s.
- Upgrading to VMware ESXi 5.0, covering upgrade paths, disk partitioning, preserving host configuration, third-party software packages, upgrade best practices, update manager, creating an upgrade baseline, upgrade using the ESXi installer, selecting the boot device and post-upgrade considerations.
- Upgrading Virtual Machines, covering the VMware tools, and virtual hardware
- Upgrading VMFS, providing considerations on whether to upgrade to VMFS or create a new VMFS.
Thanks to Eric Sloof for providing the news