Virtualization

Updating vCenter Server 5.5 to update 2

Updating vCenter Server 5.5 to update 2

With the recent release of the Update 2 revision of vSphere 5.5, many admins may be looking to update their environments to this release level to have all the latest and greatest functionality in their VMware environment.  Below we will show via screenshots the update procedure for upgrading your Windows installation of vCenter Server 5.5 to the Update 2 level.

You will want to login to VMware and grab a copy of the Update 2 ISO file for vCenter and have this mounted either physically in your server or via ISO directly.

The Process

There is a certain order that you will want to update your vCenter environment.  For the most part this makes sense and you won’t have any issues.  If you attempt to just run the “simple install” of vCenter, it will complain and tell you that you already have the components installed, and you will need to run the custom installation.  Basically this means that you will have to manually click through the components to upgrade.

In our particular environment we will upgrade:

  • vCenter Single Sign On
  • VMware vCenter Inventory SErvice
  • VMware vCenter Server

Screenshots of the upgrade process:

  • Starting out upgrading the vCenter Single Sign-On components

vcenter_upgrade1
vcenter_upgrade2
vcenter_upgrade3
vcenter_upgrade4
vcenter_upgrade5
vcenter_upgrade6
vcenter_upgrade7

  • Updating the VMware vSphere Web Client
    vcenter_upgrade8
    vcenter_upgrade9
    vcenter_upgrade10
    vcenter_upgrade11
    vcenter_upgrade12
    vcenter_upgrade13
    vcenter_upgrade14
  • Updating the VMware vCenter Inventory Service
    vcenter_upgrade15
    vcenter_upgrade16
    vcenter_upgrade17
    vcenter_upgrade18
    vcenter_upgrade19
    vcenter_upgrade20
  • Updating the vCenter Server Components
    vcenter_upgrade21
    vcenter_upgrade22
    vcenter_upgrade23
  • We are using the builtin SQL express components
    vcenter_upgrade24
    vcenter_upgrade25
    vcenter_upgrade26
    vcenter_upgrade27

Updating ESXi hosts to 5.5 Update 2:

  • Place each host as you update into Maintenance Mode
esxcli network firewall ruleset set -e true -r httpClient

esxcli software profile update -d https://hostupdate.vmware.com/software/VUM/PRODUCTION/main/vmw-depot-index.xml -p ESXi-5.5.0-20140902001-standard


Reboot each host after the above scripts complete.  Verify the version number is 2068190 which is update 2 level.

Final Thoughts:

The update process really isn’t that tricky once you have the ISO and just set aside the time to perform the upgrade.  We didn’t run into any issues with vCenter components or the ESXi host updates.  VMware has really streamlined the install and update processes where the install and update processes are rock solid.

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Brandon Lee

Brandon Lee is the Senior Writer, Engineer and owner at Virtualizationhowto.com, and a 7-time VMware vExpert, with over two decades of experience in Information Technology. Having worked for numerous Fortune 500 companies as well as in various industries, He has extensive experience in various IT segments and is a strong advocate for open source technologies. Brandon holds many industry certifications, loves the outdoors and spending time with family. Also, he goes through the effort of testing and troubleshooting issues, so you don't have to.

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4 Comments

  1. I have vCenter 5.5.0 installed on Windows Server 2012 R2 with SQL Server 2012 installed on the same box. When i want to upgrade to vCenter Update 2 all the components are installed succesfully except vCenter Components. It says to change SQL to unrestriced growth (KB2007864) and to have the Windows protected storage service set not on disabled. Windows protected storage service is depreacted in Windows Server 2012 R2. So how to enable this? Even if i change the SQL unrestricted growth option it fails again. Anyone this before? How to fix this issue?

    1. Check the requirements. If I’m not wrong, vCenter 5.5 is not supported in Windows Server 2012 R2, only in Windows Server 2012 without R2. Anyway, there is a workaround to install it in those R2 versions.

  2. Pretty straight-forward, did it yesterday, but unfortunately ran into an issue (documented by KB 2051925) which needed to be resolved first. After that everything went well – thanks for the howto!

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