You can upgrade the vCenter Server Appliance 5.5 or 6.0 and the Platform Services Controller appliance 6.0 to version 6.5. All of the installation files that are necessary for the upgrade are included in the vCenter Server Appliance installer, which you can download from the VMware Web site.

The upgrade of the vCenter Server Appliance or Platform Services Controller appliance is a migration of the old version to the new version, which includes deploying a new appliance of version 6.5. You can deploy the new appliance on an ESXi host 5.5 or later, or on the inventory of a vCenter Server instance 5.5 or later. You assign a temporary IP address to the new appliance to facilitate the configuration and services data migration from the old appliance to the newly deployed appliance. After the migration, the IP address and host name of the old appliance are applied to the new upgraded appliance of version 6.5. At the end of the upgrade, the temporary IP address is released and the old appliance is powered off.

Version 6.5 of the vCenter Server Appliance uses the embedded PostgreSQL database. If you are upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance that is using an external database, the external database will be migrated to the embedded PostgreSQL database of the new upgraded appliance. During the upgrade, you must select a storage size for the new appliance that is suitable for the database size.

Version 6.5 of the vCenter Server Appliance uses the embedded VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension service. If you are upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance that is using an external VMware Update Manager instance, the external VMware Update Manager instance will be migrated to the embedded VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension of the new upgraded appliance. The embedded VMware vSphere Update Manager Extension uses the embedded PostgreSQL database. Before the upgrade, you must run the Migration Assistant on the source VMware Update Manager instance.

For information about the software included in the vCenter Server Appliance 6.5, see vSphere Installation and Setup.

Important: For topologies with external Platform Services Controller instances, you must upgrade the replicating Platform Services Controller instances in a sequence. After the successful upgrade of all Platform Services Controller instances in the domain, you can perform concurrent upgrades of multiple vCenter Server appliances that point to a common external Platform Services Controller instance.
The vCenter Server Appliance installer contains executable files GUI and CLI upgrades which you can use alternatively.
  • The GUI upgrade is a two stage process. The first stage is a deployment wizard that deploys the OVA file of the new appliance on the target ESXi host or vCenter Server instance. After the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to the second stage of the process that sets up and transfers the services and configuration data from the old appliance to the newly deployed appliance.
  • The CLI upgrade method involves running a CLI command against a JSON file that you previously prepared. The CLI installer parses the configuration parameters and their values from the JSON file and generates an OVF Tool command that automatically deploys the new appliance and transfers the services and configuration data from the old appliance.

For information about the vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller appliance upgrade requirements, see System Requirements for the New vCenter Server Appliance and Platform Services Controller Appliance.

Important: If the appliance that you are upgrading is configured in a mixed IPv4 and IPv6 environment, only the IPv4 settings are preserved.

If the appliance that you are upgrading uses a non-ephemeral distributed virtual port group, the port group is not preserved. After the upgrade, you can manually connect the new appliance to the original non-ephemeral distributed virtual port group of the old appliance.

To upgrade a vCenter Server Appliance 5.0 or 5.1, you must first upgrade to version 5.5 or 6.0 and then upgrade to version 6.5. For information about upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance 5.0 or 5.1 to version 5.5, see theVMware vSphere 5.5 Documentation. For information about upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance 5.1 Update 3 to version 6.0, see theVMware vSphere 6.0 Documentation.

For information about deploying the vCenter Server Appliance, see vSphere Installation and Setup.

For information about configuring the vCenter Server Appliance, see vCenter Server Appliance Configuration.