You can use the GUI installer to perform an interactive upgrade of a vCenter Server appliance 6.7 or 7.0 that uses an external Platform Services Controller instance to vCenter Server appliance 8.0. You must run the GUI upgrade from a Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X computer that is in the same network as the appliance that you want to upgrade.
Prerequisites
- The new vCenter Server appliance contains all Platform Services Controller services. It is no longer necessary nor possible to deploy and use an external Platform Services Controller, as all Platform Services Controller services are consolidated into vCenter Server. To learn more about this change to vCenter Server, see Removal of Platform Services Controller.
- See Prerequisites for Upgrading the vCenter Server Appliance.
- See Required Information for Upgrading a vCenter Server Appliance 6.7 or 7.0.
Stage 1 - Deploy the OVA File of the New vCenter Server Appliance 8.0
With stage 1 of the upgrade process, you deploy the OVA file of the new vCenter Server appliance 8.0.
Procedure
Results
The newly deployed target vCenter Server appliance 8.0 is running on the target server but is not configured.
What to do next
Stage 2 - Transfer the Data and Set up the Newly Deployed vCenter Server Appliance
When the OVA deployment finishes, you are redirected to stage 2 of the upgrade process to transfer the data from the old appliance and start the services of the newly deployed vCenter Server appliance 8.0.
Prerequisites
Understand the data migration options available to you when upgrading or migrating to a vCenter Server appliance with an embedded PostgreSQL database. See Transferring Data from an Existing vCenter Server Appliance.
Procedure
Results
The vCenter Server appliance is upgraded. The old vCenter Server appliance is powered off and the new appliance starts.
What to do next
- Verify Your vCenter Server Upgrade or Migration Is Successful.
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If the old vCenter Server appliance uses a non-ephemeral distributed virtual port group, to preserve the port group setting, you can manually connect the new appliance to the original non-ephemeral distributed virtual port group. For information about configuring virtual machine networking on a vSphere distributed switch, see vSphere Networking.
- Upgrade all vCenter Server instances in the vCenter Single Sign-On domain.
- After converging a vCenter Server with external Platform Services Controller to a vCenter Server appliance, you must decommission the original external Platform Services Controller. Decommissioning a Platform Services Controller shuts it down and removes it from the single sign-on domain. See Decommission the Platform Services Controller.
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You can configure high availability for the vCenter Server appliance. For information about providing vCenter Server appliance high availability, see vSphere Availability.