Best practices for Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) upgrade
Article ID: 407905
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
- VDS version compatibility with vCenter and ESXi
| vCenter Server Version | vDS version | Host Version |
| vCenter Server 8.0 | vDS 8.0/7.0/6.6 | ESXi 8.0 |
| vCenter Server 7.0 | vDS 7.0/6.6/6.5 | ESXi 7.0 |
VDS 6.5 can be upgraded to either 6.6 or later
If your current VDS version is 6.5, then you might experience a brief downtime while upgrading your switches to a later version. If your current VDS version is 6.6 or later, then you might not experience any downtime while upgrading the switches to a later version.
Environment
VMware vCenter Server 7.x, 8.x
VMware ESXi 7.x, 8.x
Resolution
Before you begin, please make sure to:
- Upgrade vCenter to a version that is compatible with the VDS
- Upgrade all hosts connected to the distributed switch to a supported version for VDS
The following steps can be taken as best practices and recommendations to reduce the impact on production:
1. VDS upgrade needs be done during a maintenance window.
2. Export the VDS configuration (reference: Exporting/importing/restoring Distributed Switch configs using vSphere Web Client)
3. Disable DRS on all the clusters that will undergo this upgrade to ensure there are no vMotions at the same time as the upgrade. It can be enabled once the upgrade finishes. This step is important.
- Do not perform VM operations (I.E. power on/off, vMotion, etc.) during the VDS upgrade; this could potentially lead to a failure in dvport allocation- Do not perform VDS/DVPG operation during the VDS upgrade.
4. If an ESX host has two VDS's with one containing a management network and the other one containing regular workloads, please migrate the VDS containing regular workloads first so that even if something goes wrong with the upgrade (ideally shouldn't), we will have access to the ESX host through management VDS. If you experience an issue where you lose management vmk connectivity when upgrading VDS please raise a support ticket with Broadcom.
5. Upgrade one VDS at a time.
6. If there is an issue, please collect VC and ESX support bundles immediately.
7. Post upgrade if the issues like "The vSphere Distributed Switch configuration on some hosts differed from that of the vCenter Server." are seen, open the case with Broadcom Support.
For more information, refer the following KB article:- ESXi hosts out of sync on a VDS after migration/upgrade and ESXi hosts showing out of sync with VDS
Note: The worst-case scenario with a VDS upgrade is that we lose network connectivity to the VDS on a host.
If management vmknic is on the same VDS, this may force us to access the host through the console and/or perform a reboot. But we don't have any known issues that could lead to this.
Additional Information
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