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If you read the Microsoft blurb for R2, the first thing you notice is that Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only(!). It seems Microsoft are forcibly removing 32-bit server hardware from the data centre. I’ve not seen a decent upgrade guide online so far, so here’s my process.

I’m going to be upgrading a Server 2008 R2 x64 SP2 Standard Edition virtual server to R2. To see what editions can and can’t be upgraded, check out this Technet Article, but it’s safe to say that you can’t upgrade across architectures (32-bit to 64-bit) and you can’t downgrade SKUs (Enterprise to Standard).

The first step, as ever, is always to back up your server, if the upgrade goes wrong, you can always restore and try again. You have been warned!

So, without further ado, slip in your R2 DVD and begin…

Install

Update

Select your target SKU

Select “upgrade” (obviously :)

Check your upgrade report (which is saved as HTML on your desktop. The first time I ran this it said that I didn’t have enough free space – it required a whopping 15GB, which makes me think that this is no Server 2003 –> R2 upgrade, it’s the full blown OS install. Assuming everything checks out, go ahead.

Sit back and grab a cup of coffee. After a while, you’ll reboot

  and the upgrade begins in earnest. Once the process is completed, and another reboot has happened, you’ll be upgraded to R2. You’ll need to activate it with your R2 key.

Once you’re activated, update your server using Microsoft update or your patching method.

Et voila!

Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2008, R2, Windows Server, Server, 2008, upgrade

I'm currently in the process of migrating a 2-host High Availability cluster of ESX 3.5u4 servers to vSphere 4. This is going to come in 3 distinct stages: Stage 1 is to upgrade VirtualCenter Server 2.5 to vCenter 4, which I am going to cover today. Stage 2 is to upgrade each host, and will be covered as I do it. Stage 3 is the upgrade of the Virtual Machines to the latest VMware Tools and then the new VM hardware.

So to start, I'll outline the process:

• Download the vSphere vCenter 4 installer from VMware (~1.8GB).
• Download your updated licensing for vSphere.
• Back up your VirtualCenter server.
• Run the installation.

I'm not going to run through the download of the installer or licensing, if you're not sure how to do that, probably best not to do the rest.

Backing up VirtualCenter Server

My VirtualCenter server is installed on a Virtual Machine, so this makes things a lot simpler – I'll just take a snapshot to start. Being a belt-and-braces kind of situation (live HA cluster), I'm also going to do the database and configuration backup too.

Databases - I'm using SQL Server 2005 express which is supported for vSphere vCenter, so there will be no database upgrades, however the schema will be changed. First off, I've connected to SQL with SQL Management Studio and run a full backup. As I have VMware Update Manager installed too, I'm backing up that database as well.

Configuration file – Make a copy of your vpxd.cfg file, which is stored in the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\VMware\VMware VirtualCenter folder.

SSL Certificates – In the same folder as the vpxd.cfg file there's a folder called SSL, which you'll want to backup too.

If you're not using integrated authentication for the database access, you need to ensure you have the user name and password for the DB access.

Once all that's gathered together and safely backed up, you can move on to the installation.

Installing vSphere vCenter

Open services.msc and stop the VMware VirtualCenter Server service.

Insert your vCenter installation CD, the installer pops up:

Click vCenter Server.

Notice it's detected the earlier version of vCenter server and is going to upgrade.

  Enter license details.

Enter DB user details, or leave blank if you're using integrated authentication like me.

If you have any plug-ins installed (e.g. VirtualCenter Update Manager, or Converter) it will let you know that they need to be up to date too.

Select to upgrade the vCenter Server database, and tick that you've backed up the database and SSL folders.

  Select the account that you want to use to run the vCenter Server service.

Configure some ports, I've left them as defaults.

  Finally, install. It will run a DB upgrade, and various other uninstall/upgrades.

At this point I sat and waited…and waited…and waited. SQL server was chewing 70-80% processor, it was progressing, just slowly.

Eventually, it finished and the server settled down. I ran through the upgrade of Update Manager and Converter Enterprise, all click and go.

Stage 1 complete!

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