VMware vSphere - 5.5 User’s Manual

vSphere Upgrade

vSphere 5.5

This document supports the version of each product listed and supports all subsequent versions until the document is replaced by a new edition. To check for more recent editions of this document, see http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs.

EN-001267-01

vSphere Upgrade

You can find the most up-to-date technical documentation on the VMware Web site at:

http://www.vmware.com/support/

The VMware Web site also provides the latest product updates.

If you have comments about this documentation, submit your feedback to: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2009–2013 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and

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VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

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Contents

About vSphere Upgrade 7
Updated Information	9
1 Overview of the Upgrade Process				11
2 How vSphere 5.x Differs from vSphere 4.x							13
3 System Requirements	15
ESXi Hardware Requirements		15
Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service,
and vCenter Single Sign-On		19
vCenter Server Software Requirements				24
vSphere Web Client Software Requirements					24
Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging						25
Required Ports for vCenter Server			25
Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance							27
Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80								28
DNS Requirements for vSphere		28
Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions 29
Update Manager Hardware Requirements					29
4 Preparing for the Upgrade to vCenter Server								31
About the vCenter Server Upgrade			32
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects vCenter Server Upgrades									32
vCenter Single Sign-On Deployment Modes					33
vCenter Single Sign-On and High Availability						35
vCenter Single Sign-On Components				37
Setting the vCenter Server Administrator User						37
Authenticating to the vCenter Server Environment							38
How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects Log In Behavior								38
Identity Sources for vCenter Server with vCenter Single Sign-On									39
vCenter Server Upgrade Summary			40
Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service,
vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client						41
Best Practices for vCenter Server Upgrades					46
Prerequisites for the vCenter Server Upgrade 48
vCenter Server Database Configuration Notes						51
Upgrading to vCenter Server on a Different Machine								52
Supported Database Upgrades		52

Confirm That vCenter Server Can Communicate with the Local Database 52

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	Synchronizing Clocks on the vSphere Network					53
	JDBC URL Formats for the vCenter Server Database							55
	DNS Load Balancing Solutions and vCenter Server Datastore Naming 56
	About the vCenter Host Agent Pre-Upgrade Checker							57
	Downtime During the vCenter Server Upgrade					59
	Download the vCenter Server Installer			59
	Microsoft SQL Database Set to Unsupported Compatibility Mode Causes vCenter Server
	Installation or Upgrade to Fail		59
5	Upgrading vCenter Server 61
	vCenter Server Upgrade and Sign-On Process for Environments that Do Not Include vCenter
	Single Sign-On	62
	vCenter Server Upgrade and Sign-On Process for Environments with vCenter Single Sign-On 64
	Use Simple Install to Upgrade vCenter Server and Required Components									65
	Use Custom Install to Upgrade Version 5.0.x and Earlier vCenter Server and Required
	Components	69
	Use Custom Install to Upgrade a Basic vCenter Single Sign-On Deployment of Version 5.1.x
	vCenter Server and Required Components					77
	Use Custom Install to Upgrade vCenter Server from a Version 5.1.x High Availability vCenter
	Single Sign-On Deployment		83
	Use Custom Install to Upgrade vCenter Server from a Version 5.1.x Multisite vCenter Single Sign-
	On Deployment 92
	Add a vCenter Single Sign-On Identity Source					103
	Migrate vCenter Server and Components from a Windows Server 2003 Host 108
	vCenter Single Sign-On Installation Fails			117
	Updating vCenter Server with Service Packs				117
	Upgrading and Updating the vCenter Server Appliance								118
	Install or Upgrade vCenter Server Java Components Separately 122
	Install or Upgrade vCenter Server tc Server Separately								123
	vCenter Server Upgrade Fails When Unable to Stop Tomcat Service 123
6 After You Upgrade vCenter Server				125
	Install or Upgrade the vSphere Web Client				126
	Install or Upgrade vSphere ESXi Dump Collector						127
	Install or Upgrade vSphere Syslog Collector				128
	Install or Upgrade vSphere Auto Deploy			129
	Install or Upgrade vSphere Authentication Proxy						130
	Enable IPv6 Support for vCenter Inventory Service							131
	Linked Mode Considerations for vCenter Server					132
	Linked Mode Prerequisites for vCenter Server					132
	Join a Linked Mode Group After a vCenter Server Upgrade 133
	Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server									134
	Set the Maximum Number of Database Connections After a vCenter Server Upgrade 136
7	Upgrading Update Manager		137
	Upgrade the Update Manager Server 137
	Upgrade the Update Manager Client Plug-In				139

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Contents

8 Upgrading and Migrating Your Hosts 141
Preparing to Upgrade Hosts 141
Performing the Upgrade or Migration	163
After You Upgrade or Migrate Hosts	211

9	Upgrading Virtual Machines and VMware Tools 213
10	Example Upgrade Scenarios 215

Moving Virtual Machines Using vMotion During an Upgrade 215

Moving Powered Off or Suspended Virtual Machines During an Upgrade with vCenter Server 216 Migrating ESX 4.x or ESXi 4.x Hosts to ESXi 5.5 in a PXE-Booted Auto Deploy Installation 217 Upgrading vSphere Components Separately in a Horizon View Environment 218

Index 219

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About vSphere Upgrade

vSphere Upgrade describes how to upgrade VMware vSphere™ to the current version.

Tto move to the current version of vSphere by performing a fresh installation that does not preserve existing configurations, see the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

Intended Audience

vSphere Upgrade is for anyone who needs to upgrade from earlier versions of vSphere. These topics are for experienced Microsoft Windows or Linux system administrators who are familiar with virtual machine technology and datacenter operations.

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Updated Information

This vSphere Upgrade is updated with each release of the product or when necessary.

This table provides the update history of vSphere Upgrade.

Revision	Description
-01	n In “Upgrade the VMware vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 118, added note about how vCenter
	Server Appliance upgrade from version 5.0 to 5.5 differs from upgrade from version 5.1 to 5.5.
	n Updated link in Prerequisites section of “Upgrade the VMware vCenter Server Appliance,”
	on page 118 to point to correct Knowledge Base article for version 5.5 vCenter Server SSL certificate
	configuration.
	n Updated Table 3-8.
EN-001267-00	Initial release.

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Overview of the Upgrade Process

1

Upgrading is a multistage process in which procedures must be performed in a particular order. Follow the process outlined in this high-level overview to ensure a smooth upgrade with a minimum of system downtime.

IMPORTANT Make sure that you understand the entire upgrade process before you attempt to upgrade. If you do not follow the safeguards, you might lose data and access to your servers. Without planning, you might incur more downtime than is necessary.

If you use vCenter Server Heartbeat in your vSphere deployment, use the vSphere Server Heartbeat installation and upgrade documentation to upgrade vCenter Server.

vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2003 as a host operating system. See the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php and “Migrate vCenter Server and Components from a Windows Server 2003 Host,” on page 108.

vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2008 SP1 as a host operating system. Upgrade Windows Server 2008 SP1 hosts to SP2 before upgrading vCenter Server to version 5.5. See the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php and the Microsoft Software Lifecycle Policy at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#ServicePackSupport.

You must complete the upgrade process in a specific order because you can lose data and server access. Order is also important within each upgrade stage.

You can perform the upgrade process for each component in only one direction. For example, after you upgrade to vCenter Server 5.x, you cannot revert to vCenter Server 4.x. With backups and planning, you can restore your original software records.

You must complete one procedure before you move to the next procedure. Follow the directions within each procedure regarding the required sequence of minor substeps.

Because certain commands can simultaneously upgrade more than one stage, VMware recommends that you understand the irreversible changes at each stage before you upgrade your production environments.

To ensure that your datacenter upgrade goes smoothly, you can use vCenter Update Manager to manage the process for you.

vSphere upgrades proceed in the following sequence of tasks.

1If your vSphere system includes VMware solutions or plug-ins, make sure they are compatible with the vCenter Server version that you are upgrading to. See the VMware Product Interoperability Matrix at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.

2If you are upgrading vSphere components that are part of a VMware View environment, see “Upgrading vSphere Components Separately in a Horizon View Environment,” on page 218.

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3Make sure your system meets vSphere hardware and software requirements. See Chapter 3, “System Requirements,” on page 15.

4Upgrade vCenter Single Sign-On, vCenter Inventory Service, vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client.

IMPORTANT If you use vCenter Server Heartbeat in your vSphere deployment, use the vSphere Server Heartbeatinstallation and upgrade documentation to upgrade vCenter Server and related components.

See Chapter 5, “Upgrading vCenter Server,” on page 61. Use the topic “Required Information for Installing or Upgrading vCenter Single Sign-On, Inventory Service, vCenter Server, and the vSphere Web Client,” on page 41 to create a worksheet with the information you will need when you install vCenter Single Sign-On, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server.

5If you use VMware Update Manager, upgrade VMware Update Manager. See Chapter 7, “Upgrading Update Manager,” on page 137.

6Upgrade your ESXi hosts.

See Chapter 8, “Upgrading and Migrating Your Hosts,” on page 141. vSphere provides several ways to upgrade hosts:

n Use vSphere Update Manager to perform an orchestrated upgrade of your ESXi hosts. See “Using vSphere Update Manager to Perform Orchestrated Host Upgrades,” on page 164.

n Upgrade a single host at a time, interactively, from an ESXi ISO installer image stored on a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive. See “Upgrade or Migrate Hosts Interactively,” on page 178.

n Use a script to perform an unattended upgrade for multiple hosts. See “Installing, Upgrading, or Migrating Hosts Using a Script,” on page 180

n If a host was deployed using vSphere Auto Deploy, you can use Auto Deploy to upgrade the host by reprovisioning it. See “Using vSphere Auto Deploy to Reprovision Hosts,” on page 194.

nUpgrade or patch ESXi 5.x hosts by using esxcli commands. See “Upgrading Hosts by Using esxcli Commands,” on page 198.

7Reapply your host license.

See “Reapplying Licenses After Upgrading to ESXi 5.5,” on page 212.

8Upgrade virtual machines and virtual appliances, manually or by using VMware Update Manager to perform an orchestrated upgrade.

See Chapter 9, “Upgrading Virtual Machines and VMware Tools,” on page 213.

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How vSphere 5.x Differs from	2
vSphere 4.x

vSphere 5.x is a major upgrade from vSphere 4.x.

The following changes from vSphere 4.x affect vSphere installation and setup. For a complete list of new features in vSphere 5.x, see the release notes for version 5.x releases.

Service Console is removed

ESXi does not have a graphical installer

vSphere Auto Deploy

and vSphere ESXi

Image Builder CLI

Changes in the ESXi installation and upgrade process

ESXi does not include a Service Console. You can perform most tasks that you performed in the Service Console by using esxcli commands in the ESXi Shell, by using vCLI commands, and by using VMware PowerCLI commands. See Command-Line Management in vSphere 5.0 for Service Console Users and Getting Started with vSphere Command-Line Interfaces.

The graphical installer relied on the Service Console, which is not a part of ESXi. ESXi retains the text-based installer.

Before ESXi 5.0, ESXi was installed on the physical disk of each ESXi host. With ESXi 5.x, you can load an ESXi image directly into memory by using vSphere Auto Deploy. You can provision and reprovision large numbers of ESXi hosts efficiently with vCenter Server, and manage ESXi updates and patching by using an image profile. You can save host configuration such as network or storage setup as a host profile and apply it to the host by using Auto Deploy. You can use ESXi Image Builder CLI to create ESXi installation images with a customized set of updates, patches, and drivers.

For complete information on using vSphere Auto Deploy and ESXi Image Builder PowerCLI, see the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

ESXi 5.x uses a single installer wizard for fresh installations and upgrades. ESXi 5.x also provides a new option for deploying ESXi directly into the host memory with vSphere Auto Deploy. The vihostupdate and esxupdate utilities are not supported for ESXi 5.x. You cannot upgrade or migrate from earlier ESX or ESXi versions to ESXi 5.x by using any command-line utility. After you have upgraded or migrated to ESXi 5.x, you can upgrade or patch ESXi 5.x hosts using vCLI esxcli commands.

IMPORTANT After you upgrade or migrate your host to ESXi 5.x, you cannot roll back to your version 4.x ESX or ESXi software. Back up your host before you perform an upgrade or migration, so that, if the upgrade or migration fails, you can restore your 4.x host.

See “ESXi 5.5 Upgrade Options,” on page 148.

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Installer caching

Changes to partitioning of host disks

VMware vCenter Server

Appliance

vSphere Web Client

vCenter Single Sign-On

Instead of using a binary image to install the system, whatever bits were used at boot time are cached to the system. This caching reduces installation problems caused by accessing installation files across networks that are under load.

NOTE Scripted installations cannot PXE boot a server and then obtain the binary image from some other form of media.

All freshly installed hosts in vSphere 5.x use the GUID Partition Table format instead of the MSDOS-style partition label. This change supports ESXi installation on disks larger than 2TB.

Newly installed vSphere 5.x hosts use VMFS5, an updated version of the VMware File System for vSphere 5.x. Unlike earlier versions, ESXi 5.x does not create VMFS partitions in second and successive disks.

Upgraded systems do not use GUID Partition Tables (GPT), but retain the older MSDOS-based partition label.

As an alternative to installing vCenter Server on a Windows machine, vSphere 5.x provides the VMware vCenter Server Appliance. The vCenter Server Appliance is a preconfigured Linux-based virtual machine optimized for running vCenter Server and associated services.

The vSphere Web Client is a server application that provides a browserbased alternative to the deprecated vSphere Client. You can use a Web browser to connect to the vSphere Web Client to manage an ESXi host through a vCenter Server.

vSphere versions 5.1 and later include vCenter Single Sign-On as part of the vCenter Server management infrastructure. This change affects vCenter Server installation, upgrading, and operation. Authentication by vCenter Single Sign-On makes the VMware cloud infrastructure platform more secure by allowing the vSphere software components to communicate with each other through a secure token exchange mechanism, instead of requiring each component to authenticate a user separately with a directory service like Active Directory. See “How vCenter Single Sign-On Affects vCenter Server Upgrades,” on page 32

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System Requirements

3

Systems running vCenter Server and ESXi instances must meet specific hardware and operating system requirements.

If you are using Auto Deploy to provision ESXi hosts, see also the information about preparing for VMware Auto Deploy in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

This chapter includes the following topics:

n“ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 15

n“Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Single Sign-On,” on page 19

n“vCenter Server Software Requirements,” on page 24

n“vSphere Web Client Software Requirements,” on page 24

n“Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging,” on page 25

n“Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 25

n“Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 27

n“Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80,” on page 28

n“DNS Requirements for vSphere,” on page 28

n“Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions,” on page 29

n“Update Manager Hardware Requirements,” on page 29

ESXi Hardware Requirements

Make sure the host meets the minimum hardware configurations supported by ESXi 5.5.

Hardware and System Resources

To install and use ESXi 5.5, your hardware and system resources must meet the following requirements:

nSupported server platform. For a list of supported platforms, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

nESXi 5.5 will install and run only on servers with 64-bit x86 CPUs.

nESXi 5.5 requires a host machine with at least two cores.

nESXi 5.5 supports only LAHF and SAHF CPU instructions.

nESXi 5.5 requires the NX/XD bit to be enabled for the CPU in the BIOS.

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nESXi supports a broad range of x64 multicore processors. For a complete list of supported processors, see the VMware compatibility guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

nESXi requires a minimum of 4GB of physical RAM. Provide at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi features and run virtual machines in typical production environments.

nTo support 64-bit virtual machines, support for hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD RVI) must be enabled on x64 CPUs.

nOne or more Gigabit or 10Gb Ethernet controllers. For a list of supported network adapter models, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

nAny combination of one or more of the following controllers:

n Basic SCSI controllers. Adaptec Ultra-160 or Ultra-320, LSI Logic Fusion-MPT, or most NCR/Symbios SCSI.

n RAID controllers. Dell PERC (Adaptec RAID or LSI MegaRAID), HP Smart Array RAID, or IBM (Adaptec) ServeRAID controllers.

nSCSI disk or a local, non-network, RAID LUN with unpartitioned space for the virtual machines.

nFor Serial ATA (SATA), a disk connected through supported SAS controllers or supported on-board SATA controllers. SATA disks will be considered remote, not local. These disks will not be used as a scratch partition by default because they are seen as remote.

NOTE You cannot connect a SATA CD-ROM device to a virtual machine on an ESXi 5.5 host. To use the SATA CD-ROM device, you must use IDE emulation mode.

Storage Systems

For a list of supported storage systems, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility. ESXi 5.5 supports installing on and booting from the following storage systems:

nSATA disk drives. SATA disk drives connected behind supported SAS controllers or supported onboard SATA controllers.

Supported SAS controllers include: n LSI1068E (LSISAS3442E)

n LSI1068 (SAS 5)

n IBM ServeRAID 8K SAS controller n Smart Array P400/256 controller n Dell PERC 5.0.1 controller Supported on-board SATA include:

n Intel ICH9

n NVIDIA MCP55

n ServerWorks HT1000

NOTE ESXi does not support using local, internal SATA drives on the host server to create VMFS datastores that are shared across multiple ESXi hosts.

nSerial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives. Supported for installing ESXi and for storing virtual machines on VMFS partitions.

nDedicated SAN disk on Fibre Channel or iSCSI

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

nUSB devices. Supported for installing ESXi.

nSoftware Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). See “Installing and Booting ESXi with Software FCoE,” on page 163.

ESXi Booting Requirements

vSphere 5.5 supports booting ESXi hosts from the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). With UEFI you can boot systems from hard drives, CD-ROM drives, or USB media. Network booting or provisioning with VMware Auto Deploy requires the legacy BIOS firmware and is not available with UEFI.

ESXi can boot from a disk larger than 2TB provided that the system firmware and the firmware on any addin card that you are using support it. See the vendor documentation.

NOTE Changing the boot type from legacy BIOS to UEFI after you install ESXi 5.5 might cause the host to fail to boot. In this case, the host displays an error message similar to: Not a VMware boot bank. Changing the host boot type between legacy BIOS and UEFI is not supported after you install ESXi 5.5.

Storage Requirements for ESXi 5.5 Installation

Installing ESXi 5.5 requires a boot device that is a minimum of 1GB in size. When booting from a local disk or SAN/iSCSI LUN, a 5.2GB disk is required to allow for the creation of the VMFS volume and a 4GB scratch partition on the boot device. If a smaller disk or LUN is used, the installer will attempt to allocate a scratch region on a separate local disk. If a local disk cannot be found the scratch partition, /scratch, will be located on the ESXi host ramdisk, linked to /tmp/scratch. You can reconfigure /scratch to use a separate disk or LUN. For best performance and memory optimization, VMware recommends that you do not

leave /scratch on the ESXi host ramdisk.

To reconfigure /scratch, see the topic "Set the Scratch Partition from the vSphere Web Client" in the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

Due to the I/O sensitivity of USB and SD devices the installer does not create a scratch partition on these devices. As such, there is no tangible benefit to using large USB/SD devices as ESXi uses only the first 1GB. When installing on USB or SD devices, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found, /scratch is placed on the ramdisk. You should reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.

In Auto Deploy installations, the installer attempts to allocate a scratch region on an available local disk or datastore. If no local disk or datastore is found /scratch is placed on ramdisk. You should

reconfigure /scratch to use a persistent datastore following the installation.

For environments that boot from a SAN or use Auto Deploy, it is not necessary to allocate a separate LUN for each ESXi host. You can co-locate the scratch regions for many ESXi hosts onto a single LUN. The number of hosts assigned to any single LUN should be weighed against the LUN size and the I/O behavior of the virtual machines.

Recommendation for Enhanced ESXi Performance

To enhance performance, install ESXi on a robust system with more RAM than the minimum required and with multiple physical disks.

For ESXi system requirements, see “ESXi Hardware Requirements,” on page 15. See also the technical papers on vSphere 5 performance at http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/cat/91,203,96.

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Table 3 1. Recommendations for Enhanced Performance

System Element	Recommendation
RAM	ESXi hosts require more RAM than typical servers. Provide
	at least 8GB of RAM to take full advantage of ESXi features
	and run virtual machines in typical production
	environments. An ESXi host must have sufficient RAM to
	run concurrent virtual machines. The following examples
	are provided to help you calculate the RAM required by
	the virtual machines running on the ESXi host.
	Operating four virtual machines with
	Red Hat Enterprise Linux or Windows XP requires at least
	3GB of RAM for baseline performance. This figure includes
	approximately 1024MB for the virtual machines, 256MB
	minimum for each operating system as recommended by
	vendors.
	Running these four virtual machines with 512MB RAM
	requires that the ESXi host have approximately 4GB RAM,
	which includes 2048MB for the virtual machines.
	These calculations do not take into account possible
	memory savings from using variable overhead memory for
	each virtual machine. See vSphere Resource Management .
Dedicated Fast Ethernet adapters for virtual machines	Place the management network and virtual machine
	networks on different physical network cards. Dedicated
	Gigabit Ethernet cards for virtual machines, such as Intel
	PRO 1000 adapters, improve throughput to virtual
	machines with high network traffic.
Disk location	Place all data that your virtual machines use on physical
	disks allocated specifically to virtual machines.
	Performance is better when you do not place your virtual
	machines on the disk containing the ESXi boot image. Use
	physical disks that are large enough to hold disk images
	that all the virtual machines use.
VMFS5 partitioning	The ESXi installer creates the initial VMFS volumes on the
	first blank local disk found. To add disks or modify the
	original configuration, use the vSphere Web Client. This
	practice ensures that the starting sectors of partitions are
	64K-aligned, which improves storage performance.
	NOTE For SAS-only environments, the installer might not
	format the disks. For some SAS disks, it is not possible to
	identify whether the disks are local or remote. After the
	installation, you can use the vSphere Web Client to set up
	VMFS.
Processors	Faster processors improve ESXi performance. For certain
	workloads, larger caches improve ESXi performance.
Hardware compatibility	Use devices in your server that are supported by ESXi 5.5
	drivers. See the Hardware Compatibility Guide at
	http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Single Sign-On

vCenter Server host machines must meet hardware requirements.

vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server Hardware Requirements

You can install vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server on the same host machine (as with vCenter Simple Install) or on different machines. See Table 3-2.

The follosing tables list the hardware requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On and Inventory Service, running on separate host machines.

nTable 3-3

nTable 3-4

If you use Custom Install to install vCenter Single Sign-On, vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server on the same host machine, the vCenter Single Sign-On, and Inventory Service memory and disk storage requirements are in addition to the requirements for vCenter Server. See Table 3-5.

Table 3 2. Minimum Hardware Requirements for Simple Install Deployment of vCenter Single Sign-On, the vSphere Web Client , vCenter Inventory Service, and vCenter Server

Host Hardware for Simple Install Deployment	Minimum Requirement
Processor	Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
	each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory	12GB.
	Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
	database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
	vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
	VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
	Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
	When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
	your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
	services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
	heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
	after installation if the number of hosts in your
	environment changes. See the recommendations in
	Table 3-7.
Disk storage	100GB recommended.
	40-60GB of free disk space are required after installation,
	depending on the size of your inventory. You should
	provide more space to allow for future growth of your
	inventory.
	Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
	database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
	depending on the size of the database.
	In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
	logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
	the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
	increase.
Network speed	1Gbps

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Table 3 3. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Single Sign-On, Running on a Separate Host Machine from vCenter Server

vCenter Single Sign-On Hardware	Requirement
Processor	Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
	each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory	3GB. If vCenter Single Sign-On runs on the same host
	machine as vCenter Server, see Table 3-2 or Table 3-5.
Disk storage	2GB.
Network speed	1Gbps

Table 3 4. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Inventory Service, Running on a Separate Host Machine from vCenter Server

vCenter Inventory Service Hardware	Requirement
Processor	Intel or AMD x64 processor with two or more logical cores,
	each with a speed of 2GHz.
Memory	3GB. If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
	machine as vCenter Server, see Table 3-2 or Table 3-5.
Disk storage	If vCenter Inventory Service runs on the same host
	machine as vCenter Server, these requirements are in
	addition to the disk space required for vCenter Server and
	any other applications running on the vCenter Server host
	machine. See Table 3-5.
	Disk storage requirements for Inventory Service depend on
	inventory size and the amount of activity in the virtual
	machines in the inventory. At typical activity rates,
	Inventory Service uses 6GB - 12GB of disk space for 15,000
	virtual machines distributed among 1,000 hosts.
	A high rate of activity (more than 20 percent of your virtual
	machines changing per hour) results in write-ahead logs
	(WAL) being written to disk to handle updates, instead of
	in-line writes into existing disk usage. This high rate of
	activity is often associated with Virtual Desktop
	Infrastructure (VDI) use cases.
	In the following guidelines for required disk space, a small
	inventory is 1-100 hosts or 1-1000 virtual machines, and a
	large inventory is more than 400 hosts or 4000 virtual
	machines.
	n Small inventory, low activity rate: 5GB.
	n Small inventory, high activity rate: 15GB.
	n Large inventory, low activity rate: 15GB.
	n Large inventory, high activity rate: 40GB-60GB.
Network speed	1Gbps

Table 3 5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server

vCenter Server Hardware	Requirement
CPU	Two 64-bit CPUs or one 64-bit dual-core processor.
Processor	2.0GHz or faster Intel 64 or AMD 64 processor. The
	Itanium (IA64) processor is not supported. Processor
	requirements might be higher if the database runs on the
	same machine.

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

Table 3 5. Minimum Hardware Requirements for vCenter Server (Continued)

vCenter Server Hardware	Requirement
Memory	The amount of memory needed depends on your vCenter
	Server configuration.
	n If vCenter Server is installed on a different host
	machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
	Inventory Service, 4GB of RAM are required.
	n If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
	Inventory Service are installed on the same host
	machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), 10GB of
	RAM are required.
	Memory requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
	database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server.
	vCenter Server includes several Java services: VMware
	VirtualCenter Management Webservices (tc Server),
	Inventory Service, and Profile-Driven Storage Service.
	When you install vCenter Server, you select the size of
	your vCenter Server inventory to allocate memory for these
	services. The inventory size determines the maximum JVM
	heap settings for the services. You can adjust this setting
	after installation if the number of hosts in your
	environment changes. See the recommendations in
	Table 3-7.
Disk storage	The amount of disk storage needed for the vCenter Server
	installation depends on your vCenter Server configuration.
	n If vCenter Server is installed on a different host
	machine than vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
	Inventory Service, 4GB are required.
	n If vCenter Server, vCenter Single Sign-On and vCenter
	Inventory Service are installed on the same host
	machine (as with vCenter Simple Install), at least
	40-60GB of free disk space are required after
	installation, depending on the size of your inventory.
	You should provide more space to allow for future
	growth of your inventory. For guidelines about the
	disk space required for vCenter Single Sign-On and
	Inventory Service, see Table 3-3 and Table 3-4
	Disk storage requirements are higher if the vCenter Server
	database runs on the same machine as vCenter Server,
	depending on the size of those databases.
	In vCenter Server 5.x, the default size for vCenter Server
	logs is 450MB larger than in vCenter Server 4.x. Make sure
	the disk space allotted to the log folder is sufficient for this
	increase.
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express disk	Up to 2GB free disk space to decompress the installation
	archive. Approximately 1.5GB of these files are deleted
	after the installation is complete.
Network speed	1Gbps

NOTE Installing vCenter Server on a network drive or USB flash drive is not supported.

For the hardware requirements of your database, see your database documentation. The database requirements are in addition to the vCenter Server requirements if the database and vCenter Server run on the same machine.

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vSphere Web Client Hardware Requirements

The vSphere Web Client has two components: A Java server and an Adobe Flex client application running in a browser.

Table 3 6. Hardware Requirements for the vSphere Web Client Server Component

vSphere Web Client Server Hardware	Requirement
Memory	At least 2GB: 1GB for the Java heap, and 1GB for
	n The resident code
	n The stack for Java threads
	n Global/bss segments for the Java process
CPU	2.00 GHz processor with 4 cores
Disk Storage	At least 2GB free disk space
Networking	Gigabit connection recommended

JVM heap settings for vCenter Server

The JVM heap settings for vCenter Server depend on your inventory size. See “Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server,” on page 134.

Table 3 7. JVM Heap Settings for vCenter Server

	VMware VirtualCenter
vCenter Server	Management Webservices (tc		Profile-Driven
Inventory	Server)	Inventory Service	Storage Service
Small inventory (1-100	1GB	3GB	1GB
hosts or 1-1000 virtual
machines)
Medium inventory	2GB	6GB	2GB
(100-400 hosts or
1000-4000 virtual
machines)
Large inventory (More	3GB	12GB	4GB
than 400 hosts or 4000
virtual machines)

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

VMware vCenter Server Appliance Hardware Requirements and

Recommendations

Table 3 8. Hardware Requirements for VMware vCenter Server Appliance

VMware vCenter Server Appliance Hardware	Requirement
Disk storage on the host machine	For most deployments, the vCenter Server Appliance
	requires at least 70GB of disk space, and is limited to a
	maximum size of 125GB. The required disk space depends
	on the size of your vCenter Server inventory. The vCenter
	Server Appliance can be deployed with thin-provisioned
	virtual disks that can grow to the maximum size of 125GB.
	If the host machine does not have enough free disk space to
	accommodate the growth of the vCenter Server Appliance
	virtual disks, vCenter Server might cease operation, and
	you will not be able to manage your vSphere environment.
Memory in the VMware vCenter Server Appliance	Using the embedded PostgreSQL database, the vCenter
	Server Appliance supports up to 100 hosts or 3000 virtual
	machines, and has the following memory requirements
	n Very small inventory (10 or fewer hosts, 100 or fewer
	virtual machines): at least 8GB.
	n Small inventory (10-50 hosts or 100-1500 virtual
	machines): at least 16GB.
	n Medium inventory (the maximum inventory supported
	with the embedded database; 50-100 hosts or 1500-3000
	virtual machines): at least 24GB.
	Using an external Oracle database, the vCenter Server
	Appliance supports up to 1000 hosts or 10000 registered
	virtual machines, and 10000 powered-on virtual machines,
	and has the following memory requirements:
	n Very small inventory (10 or fewer hosts, 100 or fewer
	virtual machines): at least 4GB.
	n Small inventory (10-100 hosts or 100-1000 virtual
	machines): at least 8GB.
	n Medium inventory (100-400 hosts or 1000-4000 virtual
	machines): at least 16GB.
	n Large inventory (More than 400 hosts or 4000 virtual
	machines): at least 32GB.

For inventory and other configuration limits in the vCenter Server Appliance, see Configuration Maximums.

Table 3 9. JVM Heap Settings for VMware vCenter Server Appliance

	VMware VirtualCenter
vCenter Server	Management Webservices (tc		Profile-Driven
Appliance Inventory	Server)	Inventory Service	Storage Service
Small inventory (1-100	512MB	3GB	1GB
hosts or 1-1000 virtual
machines)
Medium inventory	512MB	6GB	2GB
(100-400 hosts or
1000-4000 virtual
machines)
Large inventory (More	1GB	12GB	4GB
than 400 hosts or 4000
virtual machines)

See “Configuring VMware vCenter Server - tc Server Settings in vCenter Server,” on page 134.

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vCenter Server Software Requirements

Make sure that your operating system supports vCenter Server. vCenter Server requires a 64-bit operating system, and the 64-bit system DSN is required for vCenter Server to connect to its database.

For a list of supported operating systems, see the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.

vCenter Server requires the Microsoft .NET 3.5 SP1 Framework. If it is not installed on your system, the vCenter Server installer installs it. The .NET 3.5 SP1 installation might require Internet connectivity to download more files.

NOTE If your vCenter Server host machine uses a non-English operating system, install both the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 Language Pack through Windows Update. Windows Update automatically selects the correct localized version for your operating system. The .NET Framework installed through the vCenter Server installer includes only the English version.

vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2003 as a host operating system. See the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.

vCenter Server 5.5 removes support for Windows Server 2008 SP1 as a host operating system. Upgrade Windows Server 2008 SP1 hosts to SP2 before upgrading vCenter Server to version 5.5. See the VMware Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php and the Microsoft Software Lifecycle Policy at http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/#ServicePackSupport.

If you plan to use the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Express database that is bundled with vCenter Server, Microsoft Windows Installer version 4.5 (MSI 4.5) is required on your system. You can download MSI 4.5 from the Microsoft Web site. You can also install MSI 4.5 directly from the vCenter Server autorun.exe installer.

The VMware vCenter Server Appliance can be deployed only on hosts that are running ESX version 4.x or ESXi version 4.x or later.

vSphere Web Client Software Requirements

Make sure that your browser supports the vSphere Web Client.

VMware has tested and supports the following guest operating systems and browser versions for the vSphere Web Client.

Table 3 10. Supported guest operating systems and browser versions for the vSphere Web Client .

Operating system	Browser
Windows 32-bit and 64-bit	Microsoft Internet Explorer 8, 9 (64-bit only), and 10.
	Mozilla Firefox: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
	the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
	Google Chrome: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
	the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
Mac OS	Mozilla Firefox: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
	the vSphere 5.5 is produced.
	Google Chrome: the latest browser version, and the one previous version at the time
	the vSphere 5.5 is produced.

Later versions of these browsers are likely to work, but have not been tested.

The vSphere Web Client requires the Adobe Flash Player version 11.5.0 or later to be installed with the appropriate plug-in for your browser.

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

Providing Sufficient Space for System Logging

ESXi 5.x uses a new log infrastructure. If your host is deployed with Auto Deploy, or if you set up a log directory separate from the default location in a scratch directory on the VMFS volume, you might need to change your current log size and rotation settings to ensure that enough space for system logging exists.

All vSphere components use this infrastructure. The default values for log capacity in this infrastructure vary, depending on the amount of storage available and on how you have configured system logging. Hosts that are deployed with Auto Deploy store logs on a RAM disk, which means that the amount of space available for logs is small.

If your host is deployed with Auto Deploy, reconfigure your log storage in one of the following ways:

nRedirect logs over the network to a remote collector.

nRedirect logs to a NAS or NFS store.

You might also want to reconfigure log sizing and rotations for hosts that are installed to disk, if you redirect logs to nondefault storage, such as a NAS or NFS store.

You do not need to reconfigure log storage for ESXi hosts that use the default configuration, which stores logs in a scratch directory on the VMFS volume. For these hosts, ESXi 5.x autoconfigures logs to best suit your installation, and provides enough space to accommodate log messages.

Table 3 11. Recommended Minimum Size and Rotation Configuration for hostd, vpxa, and fdm Logs.

		Number of Rotations to
Log	Maximum Log File Size	Preserve	Minimum Disk Space Required
Management Agent	10240KB	10	100MB
(hostd)
VirtualCenter Agent	5120KB	10	50MB
(vpxa)
vSphere HA agent (Fault	5120KB	10	50MB
Domain Manager, fdm)

For information about setting up and configuring syslog and a syslog server and installing vSphere Syslog Collector, see the vSphere Installation and Setup documentation.

Required Ports for vCenter Server

The VMware vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from every vSphere Web Client. To enable migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.

For information about ports required for the vCenter Server Appliance, see “Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance,” on page 27.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated ports for data from the vCenter Server system. If a firewall exists between any of these elements and Windows firewall service is in use, the installer opens the ports during the installation. For custom firewalls, you must manually open the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to receive data.

NOTE In Microsoft Windows Server 2008, a firewall is enabled by default.

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Table 3 12. Ports Required for Communication Between Components

Port	Description
80	vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS
	port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server instead of https://server.
	If you use a custom Microsoft SQL database (not the bundled SQL Server 2008 database) that is
	stored on the same host machine as the vCenter Server, port 80 is used by the SQL Reporting Service.
	When you install vCenter Server, the installer will prompt you to change the HTTP port for vCenter
	Server. Change the vCenter Server HTTP port to a custom value to ensure a successful installation.
	Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) also use port 80. See “Conflict Between vCenter Server
	and IIS for Port 80,” on page 28.
389	This port must be open on the local and all remote instances of vCenter Server. This is the LDAP port
	number for the Directory Services for the vCenter Server group. The vCenter Server system needs to
	bind to port 389, even if you are not joining this vCenter Server instance to a Linked Mode group. If
	another service is running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a
	different port. You can run the LDAP service on any port from 1025 through 65535.
	If this instance is serving as the Microsoft Windows Active Directory, change the port number from
	389 to an available port from 1025 through 65535.
636	For vCenter Server Linked Mode, this is the SSL port of the local instance. If another service is
	running on this port, it might be preferable to remove it or change its port to a different port. You can
	run the SSL service on any port from 1025 through 65535.
902	The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts
	also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Server system. This port must not be
	blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts.
8080	Web Services HTTP. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
8443	Web Services HTTPS. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
60099	Web Service change service notification port
6501	Auto Deploy service
6502	Auto Deploy management
7005	vCenter Single Sign-On
7009	vCenter Single Sign-On
7080	vCenter Single Sign-On
7444	vCenter Single Sign-On HTTPS
9443	vSphere Web Client HTTPS
9090	vSphere Web Client HTTP
10080	vCenter Inventory Service HTTP
10443	vCenter Inventory Service HTTPS
10109	vCenter Inventory Service Management
10111	vCenter Inventory Service Linked Mode Communication

To have the vCenter Server system use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For a discussion of firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

Required Ports for the vCenter Server Appliance

The VMware vCenter Server system must be able to send data to every managed host and receive data from every vSphere Web Client. For migration and provisioning activities between managed hosts, the source and destination hosts must be able to receive data from each other.

For information about ports required for vCenter Server on Windows, see “Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 25.

VMware uses designated ports for communication. Additionally, the managed hosts monitor designated ports for data from the vCenter Server system. The vCenter Server Appliance is preconfigured to use the ports listed in Table 3-13. For custom firewalls, you must manually open the required ports. If you have a firewall between two managed hosts and you want to perform source or target activities, such as migration or cloning, you must configure a means for the managed hosts to receive data.

Table 3 13. Ports Required for the vCenter Server Appliance

Port	Description
80	vCenter Server requires port 80 for direct HTTP connections. Port 80 redirects requests to HTTPS
	port 443. This redirection is useful if you accidentally use http://server instead of https://server.
443	The vCenter Server system uses port 443 to monitor data transfer from SDK clients.
902	The default port that the vCenter Server system uses to send data to managed hosts. Managed hosts
	also send a regular heartbeat over UDP port 902 to the vCenter Server system. This port must not be
	blocked by firewalls between the server and the hosts or between hosts.
8080	Web Services HTTP. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
8443	Web Services HTTPS. Used for the VMware VirtualCenter Management Web Services.
10080	vCenter Inventory Service HTTP
10443	vCenter Inventory Service HTTPS
10109	vCenter Inventory Service database
514	vSphere Syslog Collector server
1514	vSphere Syslog Collector server (SSL)
6500	Network coredump server (UDP)
6501	Auto Deploy service
6502	Auto Deploy management
9090	vSphere Web Client HTTP
9443	vSphere Web Client HTTPS
5480	vCenter Server Appliance Web user interface HTTPS
5489	vCenter Server Appliance Web user interface CIM service
22	System port for SSHD

To have the vCenter Server system use a different port to receive vSphere Web Client data, see the vCenter Server and Host Management documentation.

For a discussion of firewall configuration, see the vSphere Security documentation.

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Conflict Between vCenter Server and IIS for Port 80

vCenter Server and Microsoft Internet Information Service (IIS) both use port 80 as the default port for direct HTTP connections. This conflict can cause vCenter Server to fail to restart after the installation of vSphere Authentication Proxy.

Problem

vCenter Server fails to restart after the installation of vSphere Authentication Proxy is complete.

Cause

If you do not have IIS installed when you install vSphere Authentication Proxy, the installer prompts you to install IIS. Because IIS uses port 80, which is the default port for vCenter Server direct HTTP connections, vCenter Server fails to restart after the installation of vSphere Authentication Proxy is complete. See “Required Ports for vCenter Server,” on page 25.

Solution

uTo resolve a conflict between IIS and vCenter Server for port 80, take one of the following actions.

Option	Description
If you installed IIS before installing	Change the port for vCenter Server direct HTTP connections from 80 to
vCenter Server	another value.
If you installed vCenter Server	Before restarting vCenter Server, change the binding port of the IIS default
before installing IIS	Web site from 80 to another value.

DNS Requirements for vSphere

You install vCenter Server, like any other network server, on a machine with a fixed IP address and wellknown DNS name, so that clients can reliably access the service.

Assign a static IP address and host name to the Windows server that will host the vCenter Server system. This IP address must have a valid (internal) domain name system (DNS) registration.

Ensure that the ESXi host management interface has a valid DNS resolution from the vCenter Server and all vSphere Web Clients. Ensure that the vCenter Server has a valid DNS resolution from all ESXi hosts and all vSphere Web Clients.

Ensure that the vCenter Server is installed on a machine that has a resolvable fully qualified domain name (FQDN). To check that the FQDN is resolvable, type nslookup your_vCenter_Server_fqdn at a command line prompt. If the FQDN is resolvable, the nslookup command returns the IP and name of the domain controller machine.

Ensure that DNS reverse lookup returns a fully qualified domain name when queried with the IP address of the vCenter Server. When you install vCenter Server, the installation of the web server component that supports the vSphere Web Client fails if the installer cannot look up the fully qualified domain name of the vCenter Server from its IP address. Reverse lookup is implemented using PTR records. To create a PTR record, see the documentation for your vCenter Server host operating system.

If you use DHCP instead of a static IP address for vCenter Server, make sure that the vCenter Server computer name is updated in the domain name service (DNS). Ping the computer name to test the connection. For example, if the computer name is host-1.company.com, run the following command in the Windows command prompt:

ping host-1.company.com

If you can ping the computer name, the name is updated in DNS.

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Chapter 3 System Requirements

Supported Remote Management Server Models and Minimum Firmware Versions

You can use remote management applications to install ESXi or for remote management of hosts.

Table 3 14. Supported Remote Management Server Models and Firmware Versions

Remote Controller Make and
Model	Firmware Version	Java
Dell DRAC 6	1.54 (Build 15), 1.70 (Build 21)	1.6.0_24
Dell DRAC 5	1.0, 1.45, 1.51	1.6.0_20,1.6.0_203
Dell DRAC 4	1.75	1.6.0_23
HP ILO	1.81, 1.92	1.6.0_22, 1.6.0_23
HP ILO 2	1.8, 1.81	1.6.0_20, 1.6.0_23
IBM RSA 2	1.03, 1.2	1.6.0_22

Update Manager Hardware Requirements

You can run Update Manager on any system that meets the minimum hardware requirements.

Minimum hardware requirements for Update Manager vary depending on how Update Manager is deployed. If the database is installed on the same machine as Update Manager, requirements for memory size and processor speed are higher. To ensure acceptable performance, verify that your system meets the minimum hardware requirements.

Table 3 15. Minimum Hardware Requirements

Hardware	Requirements
Processor	Intel or AMD x86 processor with two or more logical cores, each with a speed of 2GHz
Network	10/100 Mbps
	For best performance, use a Gigabit connection between Update Manager and the
	ESX/ESXi hosts
Memory	2GB RAM if Update Manager and vCenter Server are on different machines
	4GB RAM if Update Manager and vCenter Server are on the same machine

Update Manager uses a SQL Server or Oracle database. You should use a dedicated database for

Update Manager, not a database shared with vCenter Server, and should back up the database periodically. Best practice is to have the database on the same computer as Update Manager or on a computer in the local network.

Depending on the size of your deployment, Update Manager requires a minimum amount of free space per month for database usage. For more information about space requirements, see the VMware vSphere Update Manager Sizing Estimator.

For more information about ESXi 5.x and vCenter Server 5.x hardware requirements, see Chapter 3, “System Requirements,” on page 15.

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Supported Operating Systems and Database Formats

Update Manager works with specific databases and operating systems.

The Update Manager server requires a 64-bit Windows system.

NOTE Make sure the system on which you are installing the Update Manager server is not an Active Directory domain controller.

The Update Manager plug-in requires the vSphere Client, and works with the same operating systems as the vSphere Client.

Update Manager scans and remediates Windows and Linux virtual machines for VMware Tools and virtual hardware upgrades.

The Update Manager server requires SQL Server or Oracle database. Update Manager can handle smallscale environments using the bundled SQL Server 2008 R2 Express. For environments with more than 5 hosts and 50 virtual machines, create either an Oracle or a SQL Server database for Update Manager. For large scale environments, you should set up the Update Manager database on a different computer than the Update Manager server and the vCenter Server database.

For detailed information about supported operating systems and database formats, see the vSphere Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php.

For detailed information about supported database formats, see the VMware Product Interoperability Matrixes at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/sim/interop_matrix.php.

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