vCenter Server 4.1 - Part Deux

After some RTFM in the 4.1 install and upgrade guides, it was clear that the best approach for upgrading to 4.1 is to back up the 4.0 database on red-bank and then install vCenter 4.1, pointing it at the existing DB. This would ensure that all the configuration of the current vSphere 4.0 environment will be migrated properly.

Here is the process:

Shut down the vCenter Services on VCS01 (vCenter Server 4.0)
Backup the VIM_VCDB database on Red-Bank
Create a x64 ODBC DSN on Alpine pointing to the above DB
On Alpine VM, begin the install of vCenter Server 4.1 selecting "Connect to SQL Server"
Select "Upgrade Database"

Since the login credentials for the session on Alpine were user credentials that we could not change at install time, we use them. The vCenter Server and VC Web Server services will be logging on as this user. Once the install is complete, we went into Windows services on Alpine and changed the "log in as" credentials to the domain database user (dbuser01, in this case).

vCenter Server , though some were not active.

After logging into vCenter Server 4.1 all objects were present, however all the ESXi Hosts were disconnected. This was because the hosts are still members of the vCenter 4.0 instance. Right clicking on each host and selecting "Connect" initiated the install of the new vCenter 4.1 host agent and allowed the hosts to be added to vCenter 4.1.

Next is to move some of the VM's on cresskill to the Towers1 cluster.