VMworld 09: Boot Camp: Sunday Review:

Before I say more I want to thank the LAB Team and VMware for putting together this VERY special opportunity of ALL day lab like this. The task of creating the environment for a LAB session of this size is amazing and the man power that was behind trying to pull it off.

That said, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. We didn't get to start any LAB work until about 2:30 in the afternoon, and only a few teams actually were able to complete an actual upgrade. But it wasn't a total wash. We had some good powerpoint material and all got to bond and ask questions and really get some good information that will help I think overall down the road with people moving to vSphere 4.

The vSphere upgrade/migration, we were told, is about 75% strategy/25% tactical compared to the focus in past migrations being more tactical.

You have three choices, update manager upgrade, clean install, or host update utility. There is so much changed between ESX 3.5 and vSphere 4, I think a clean environment build that you migrate too is the best option. Especially with the COS (if you are going to keep it around with VMware telling you that you should be moving away from it) being a virtual machine that has to be placed properly on local VMFS or a NON-shared SAN LUN.

Again LAB team we applaud your effort and look forward to a reunion at the next VMworld on your next LAB like this (just please announce it before we get our flights arranged next time).