Anyone running vCenter 6.x with ESXi 5.5 hosts for the long term?

I have been planning to upgrade to vSphere 6 toward the end of the year, but after doing some research on the VMware HCL, I noted that none of our IBM blades are not on the HCI for ESXi 6. 5.5 is the latest version of ESXi that is supported on these servers.

So, I'm planning to upgrade vCenter to 6.x, leave my clusters that consist of IBM blades at ESXi 5.5 U3, and deploy ESXi 6.x to my newer hardware.

Aside from missing out on some of the 6.x feature set that is dependent on ESXi 6.x, anyone see any issues leaving this environment in a mixed state for 2 or so years?

Thanks,

b

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dave330i

There shouldn't be any issues as long as you're not mixing vSphere versions within the cluster.

TheProf

I personally don't think it would be a big issue, but generally speaking, it's not recommended. Then again, there are exceptions

Lexluethar

Keep the clusters separate and you will be fine.

kj0

We've been running one of your DCs with 5.1 hosts in a 5.5 vCenter for over a year. (Project keeps getting pushed back for "More important" things apparently)

We aso have 5.5 hosts in the DC as well, however as mentioned above, just make sure they are not in the same cluster and you shouldn't have any issues.

*Technically you can run 4.1 hosts under vCenter, but... Why?!

jdancer

I've managed ESXi 5.1 hosts with vCenter 6 appliance. Was no issues. The last of the ESXi 5.1 hosts are no more because I just upgraded them to ESXi 6 this week. ESXi 5.1 going to be end-of-life anyway this year.

jibbajabba

dave330i wrote: »

There shouldn't be any issues as long as you're not mixing vSphere versions within the cluster.

TheProf wrote: »

I personally don't think it would be a big issue, but generally speaking, it's not recommended. Then again, there are exceptions

How do you upgrade your hosts if you won't run a mixed cluster

Btw. - it IS officially supported !!

Even back in 4/5 days

Mixing ESX/ESXi Versions in an HA/DRS Cluster - VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

dave330i

jibbajabba wrote: »

How do you upgrade your hosts if you won't run a mixed cluster

Btw. - it IS officially supported !!

Even back in 4/5 days

Mixing ESX/ESXi Versions in an HA/DRS Cluster - VMware vSphere Blog - VMware Blogs

Build a new cluster.

techfiend

Until recently I managed a 5.5 cluster along with a few 6 clusters on vCenter 6 for months without issue. I'd expect it to be fairly common practice to run mixed clusters in vCenter while testing.

I wouldn't mix hosts on a cluster longer than you have to because issues could arise with additional and changed parms.

jibbajabba

dave330i wrote: »

Build a new cluster.

Not always possible ... My point is - when someone says it isn't supported - it is wrong

And even with a new cluster - you still need to mix or have a lot of swing kit ... If you got 100 hosts with 1000 VMs - Good luck in moving everything to a new cluster. Some finance company we had to upgrade always got a heart attack when we suggested that ...

jibbajabba

techfiend wrote: »

I wouldn't mix hosts on a cluster longer than you have to because issues could arise with additional and changed parms.

The key is not to upgrade virtual hardware beyond the abilities of the lowest ESXi version in the cluster or change anything for that matter until every host in the cluster has the upgraded version.

And if you ever worked with vCD you know it adds a hack of a lot more issues using a different cluster

dave330i

jibbajabba wrote: »

Not always possible ... My point is - when someone says it isn't supported - it is wrong

And even with a new cluster - you still need to mix or have a lot of swing kit ... If you got 100 hosts with 1000 VMs - Good luck in moving everything to a new cluster. Some finance company we had to upgrade always got a heart attack when we suggested that ...

Don't think anyone said it's wrong or isn't supported. Mixed environment is fully supported by VMware. Just not recommended for long term due to potential odd behaviors.