vSphere 5.1 -Scheduling Virtual Machine hardware Upgrade

With vSphere 5.1, Virtual Machine hardware version is referred as VM compatibility in vSphere Web Client. You can upgrade the VM compatibility from the older version to latest version that is VM hardware Version 9. In previous versions of vSphere, you need to get an decicated downtime to perform VM hardware upgrade.As of vSphere 5.1,You don't need to get an downtime for the virtual machine to perform the virtual machine hardware version upgrade.

With vSphere 5.1, You have option to schedule the hardware upgrade. If it is scheduled, The hardware upgrade to the selected version will be done during the next reboot of the virtual machine. Even you have additional control to perform the VM hardware version upgrade only during the only during normal guest shutdown. So that, you can make sure VM hardware was not upgraded during VM down due to some other issues.


Steps to schedule a VM compatibility upgrade from vSphere Web Client

1. Login to your vCenter server using vSphere Web Client

2. Browse towards your virtual Machine in the inventory

3.Right-click your VM and click on All vCenter Actions

4. Click on Compatibility and select "Schedule VM compatibility Upgrade"

5. Select the Compatibility version from the drop-down list to upgrade to

6. Select the check mark "only upgrade after normal Guest OS shutdown"

7.Click ok to schedule the upgrade.

The above step can also be performed via Virtual Machine Edit settings

Right-Click the VM -> Edit settings ->Virtual Hardware -> Upgrade

VM hardware upgrade will be completed during the VM next reboot.

Thanks for Reading !!!!!

Read More

vSphere 5.1 -Unable to create VM with Hardware Version 9 in vSphere Client

With the release of vSphere 5.1, You can create a virtual machine with hardware version 9 . You can create Virtual machine hardware version 9 in the ESXi 5.1 host. It is strange that i am unable to create a virtual machine with hardware version 9 in the ESXi 5.1 host when i am performing it via vSphere Client. Then Finally, I confirms that you can only create VM with hardware version 9 from vSphere web client. Below is the comparison of screenshot for virtual machine creation on the same ESXi 5.1 host from vSphere client and  also from vSphere Web client.


vSphere Client only gives the option create the virtual machine with below three VM hardware version

Virtual Machine Version:4
Virtual Machine Version:7
Virtual Machine Version:8

vSphere Web client gives the option to create the VM hardware version 9 on the same ESXi host.

ESX 3.x and later (VM Version 4)
ESX 4.x and later (VM Version 7)
ESX 5.x and later (VM Version 8)
ESX 5.x and later (VM Version 9)

If you don't have a vSphere Web client in your environment. As a workaround, you can create a virtual Machine with VM hardware version 8 and later you can upgrade the VM hardware to version 9 using vSphere client. vSphere client will not allow us to create VM hardware version 9 but it will allow us to upgrade the VM hardware version to 9.


Workaround

1. Create a virtual Machine with VM hardware version 8.

2. Once VM is created, Make sure VM is powered-off

3. Right-click the virtual Machine

4.Upgrade VM hardware and click Ok for the warning message

5. VM hardware upgrade will complete and verify the hardware version is upgraded to version 9 in vSphere client.

Thanks for Reading !!!!!

Read More