Appendix D: vCloud Director Upgrade Considerations : Background
   
Background
The upgrade process can be divided into four phases. After completion of a phase, the next phase can be started immediately or can be deferred until later without having a major effect on the vCloud infrastructure. However, new features are not available until all components in each phase are fully upgraded.
This document focuses on the considerations for Phase 1 – Upgrade considerations for moving from VMware vCloud Director 1.5 to 5.1.
The following table highlights the features and functionality that are not available until all of the upgrade phases are completed.
Table 23 Upgrade Phases
Phase
Steps
I
*Upgrade vCloud Director Cells from 1.5.x to 5.1.
*Upgrade Manager and deployed Edges from 5.0 to 5.1.
*Upgrade Chargeback from 2.0.1 to 2.5.
*(Optional) Upgrade the Oracle/SQL Database versions on database servers.
Deferring next phase affect
VCD 5.1 can manage existing vSphere 5.0, however new features and functionality are not available until the components below are upgraded.
II
*Upgrade vCenter Server from 5.0 to 5.1.
*Upgrade vCenter Orchestrator 5.0 to 5.1 (equivalent).
Deferring next phase affect
vCenter Server 5.1 and vCenter Orchestrator 5.1 can manage vSphere ESXi 5.0, however new features and functionality are not available until the components below are upgraded.
III
Upgrade vSphere hosts from 5.0 to 5.1.
Deferring next phase affect
New features and functionality are not available until the components below are upgraded.
IV
*Upgrade vSphere Distributed Switches.
*Update vCloud Director configuration.
*Upgrade vApp hardware levels to hardware version 9.
*Upgrade VMware Tools.