Upgrading to vCenter 7.0

So here I’ll try a few different upgrade realities to get to vCenter 7.0 and see how things fare. Firstly check your release notes.
https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/7.0/rn/vsphere-esxi-vcenter-server-70-release-notes.html
Next are you using vCenter 6.7U2c or 6.7U3 with an external platform services controller – you need to upgrade to 6.7U3a first.
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/74678
If you coming from a Windows Server (There is NO windows vCenter 7 version anymore!!) make sure all Windows Updates have been applied and are not pending – disable updates if you have to.
Using Oracle for Database? Check the release notes for the good news!

So, let’s try a few things. I installed a windows vCenter 6.0 U3a which is NOT compatible. I created an embedded deployment and tried upgrading it to vCenter 7.0 for kicks. This is what happened:

I chose Upgrade and entered in the source appliance details and got this:

Next I created an appliance based external deployment – 1 x PSC, 1 x vCenter using 6.5 U3f.

The next part of the wizard was interesting – should I reuse the old VC VM name or will it impact the FQDN? From my reading this is just the name of the VM in vCenter – if you use a version digit in the name this is a way you can update that so I chose Labvc70 over Labvc65 just to see what would happen. I expect the VM to have a FQDN of Labvc65.lab.local still but we’ll see how it turns out…!

So, the new vCenter VM deployed fine

No surprises here:

This is interesting, if you have a larger topology:

Usual option:

All looks good here:

Interesting comment about decommissioning the old PSC which we’ll get back to later:

All fine here. It kept the old FQDN but the VM is now called Labvc70 in vCenter.

So, it powered down Labvc65 and used the VM name Labvc70 which can be handy. The FQDN is maintained and it’s an embedded PSC now. But what about Labpsc01 – the KB indicates you need to do further work. Can I just power the damn thing off?

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2106736

Firstly, let me check AD integration.

So, the old PSC is still listed and is AD integrated but the new vCenter 7 isn’t. This needs to be configured before I mess with the PSC. Don’t forget to reboot the new vCenter appliance.

So, am I using the embedded PSC or the old labpsc01?

So, I’m ok to remove the old PSC now….

I’ve a ! in my password which caused the command to fail – make sure you surround your password with ‘ ‘ if you have special characters or you’ll get the same error I did up above!

So to sum up – to get rid of the old PSC – power it down, then run the command on the new vCenter that has the embedded PSC and you’re good to go!