As you can probably imagine, it would be very difficult to automate this process so the decision was made to not offer an upgrade, but rather a migration path. This article describes the issue in more detail. Basically, one would have to upgrade from SP1 to SP2 and then to SP3. VDP 5.8.x and VDP 6.0.x are built on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 11 SP1 and VDP 6.1 is built on SLES 11 SP3 and there is no direct upgrade path from SP1 to SP3. For starters, you can only migrate from VDP 5.8.x or VDP 6.0.x to 6.1.
The upgrade to VDP 6.1 is an exception – it is more of a migration.
On the SRM server run the executable downloaded earlier.Traditionally, the process to upgrade a vSphere Data Protection (VDP) virtual appliance to the latest version has been to use an upgrade ISO and perform an in-place upgrade. We can now commence the Site Recovery Manager upgrade, it is advisable to take a snapshot of the server and ensure backups are in place.
Download and run the installer for the SRA upgrade, in most cases it is a simple next, install, finish. In this instance we are using Nimble storage replication, so the Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) should be upgraded first. ProcessĪs identified above, vSphere Replication should be upgraded before Site Recovery Manager. Log into the vSphere web client and navigate to the Site Recovery section, verify there are no pending cleanup operations or configuration issues, all recovery plans and protection groups should be in a Ready state. In addition to backing up the database check the health of the SRM servers and confirm there are no pending reboots.
From command prompt run the following commands, replacing the db_username and srm_backup_name parameters, and the install path and port if they were changed from the default settingsĬd C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager Embedded Database\bin pg_dump -Fc -host 127.0.0.1 -port 5678 -username= db_username srm_db > srm_backup_name.
Log into the SRM Windows server and stop the VMware Site Recovery Manager service.
Full instructions can be found here, in summary:
Database Backupīefore starting the upgrade make sure you take a backup of the embedded vPostgres database, or the external database. Review the release notes here, and SRM upgrade documentation centre here. Confirm you have Platform Services Controller details, the password, and the database details and passwordĭownload the VMware Site Recovery Manager 8.1.0.4 self extracting installer here to the server, and if applicable the updated Storage Replication Adapter (SRA) – for storage replication.Make a note of any advanced settings you may have configured under Sites > Site > Manage > Advanced Settings.If you are unsure of the upgrade order for VMware components see the Order of Upgrading vSphere and Site Recovery Manager Components page here.For other VMware products check the product interoperability site here.In Site Recovery Manager 8.1 the version number is decoupled from vSphere, however check that you do not need to perform an upgrade for compatibility.Ensure the vCenter and Platform Services Controller are running and available.Site Recovery Manager 8.1 is compatible with vSphere 6.0 U3 onwards, and VMware Tools 10.1 and onwards, see the compatibility matrices page here for full details.If vSphere Replication is in use then upgrade vSphere Replication first, following the steps outlined here.Check the upgrade path here, for Site Recovery Manager 8.1 we can upgrade from 6.1.2 and later.Protection groups and recovery plans also need to be in a valid state to be retained, any invalid configurations or not migrated.The Site Recovery Manager upgrade retains configuration and information such as recovery plans and history but does not preserve any advanced settings.The upgrade is relatively simple but we need to cross-check compatibility and perform validation tests after running the upgrade installer. Read more about what’s new in this blog post. This post will walk through an inplace upgrade of VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to version 8.1, which introduces support for the vSphere HTML5 client and recovery / migration to VMware on AWS.