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Site Recovery Manager (SRM) 4.0 Upgrade FAQ
Purpose
This article provides information for users upgrading to SRM 4.0. The article contains Frequently Asked Questions that can aid in upgrading to SRM 4.0.
Resolution
Are there any windows services that should be running before the upgrade?
Before upgrading to SRM 4.0, ensure vCenter is running along with the following services:
DHCP Client
Protected Storage
Server (lanmanserver)
Workstation (lanmanworkstation)
Do I need to upgrade vCenter?
If you decide not to upgrade vCenter as part of the SRM upgrade, and decide to a fresh install of vCenter on a different host, it is not possible to upgrade SRM. Upgrading vCenter to 4.0 is required to upgrade SRM 4.0.
What is the workflow to upgrade the Protection Site?
To upgrade the Protection Site:
Upgrade vCenter 2.5 and your VMware Infrastructure Client to vSphere 4.0.
VMware recommends backing up of your vCenter Server 4.0 and SRM 1.0 database. This might be needed if your installation needs to be rolled back.
Check that the SRM plug-in is enabled before the upgrade. If you upgrade a disabled SRM, plug-in you will not be able to enable it after upgrade.
Upgrade your SRM server.
Restart the vSphere Client for the plug-in to appear in the home page.
What is the workflow to upgrade the Recovery Site?
To upgrade the Recovery Site, follow the steps described to upgrade the Protection Site.
Do I need to upgrade the ESX hosts?
Upgrading ESX hosts to ESX 4.0 is not required for SRM 4.0.
I have made modifications to SRM configuration files.Will these be preserved?
If you have made modifications to the <SRM root>/conf/* files, these files are over written during the SRM 4.0 upgrade process. If there are any files that you need to preserve, create a backup before you start upgrading SRM.
What should I do after the upgrade?
A test recovery is recommended after upgrading to SRM 4.0.
Can I use ESX 3.x hosts with SRM 4.0? Protected and Recovery sites can use ESX 3.x hosts but must be managed by vCenter 4.0 for SRM 4.0 functionality.
Can I map an ESX 4.0 cluster to ESX 3.x cluster? If you have upgraded your virtual machines to Virtual Hardware version 7, you cannot map between an ESX 4 cluster and an ESX 3 cluster and you receive an error similar to:
Unable to create the placeholder virtual machine at the recovery site: Host, resource pool and datastore are not compatible.
However, if you have not upgraded your virtual machines to Virtual Hardware 7, you can map between the clusters and avoid the this error. Also, failover will work.
How has host licensing changed? SRM no longer uses FLEX licensing so your license key must be entered in SRM Advanced Settings License. To access this, right-click Site Recovery Manager in the vSphere navigation pane and choose Advanced Settings. This license is new and your old SRM licenses do not work. You can obtain new licenses from the SRM portal after SRM 4.0 is available.
Note: If SRM Update 1 is installed, enter the license in the vSphere License Manager. While the way in which you enter the license for SRM 4 changes in Update 1, the license does not.
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