The Site Recovery Manager 6.1 has been released for a while now so it is a good time to have a look at the upgrade process from version 6.0. Before you jump into the upgrade process, have a quick look at what’s new in Site Recovery Manager 6.1 in one of my previous posts.

As in previous releases, you can upgrade an existing vCenter Site Recovery Manager installation and the upgrade process will preserve existing information and settings (except the advanced settings) in your current vCenter Site Recovery Manager deployment. Before you begin, make sure you have read the following:

Important note: As per vCenter Site Recovery Manager Installation and Configuration guide, upgrading from Site Recovery Manager 5.x to Site Recovery Manager 6.1 is not supported. Upgrade Site Recovery Manager 5.x to a Site Recovery Manager 6.0.x release before you upgrade to Site Recovery Manager 6.1.

Upgrade Order

As described in the vCenter Site Recovery Manager Installation and Configurations guide, you must upgrade certain components of your vSphere environment before you upgrade the vCenter Site Recovery Manager. As always, upgrade the components on the protected site before you upgrade the components on the recovery site. Upgrading the protected site first allows you to perform a disaster recovery on the recovery site if you encounter problems during the upgrade that render the protected site unusable. One exception are the ESXi hosts, which you can upgrade after you finish upgrading the other components on the protected and recovery sites.

When upgrading to Site Recovery Manager 6.1 follow these steps as described below.

Upgrade all components of vCenter Server on the protected site.

If you use vSphere Replication, upgrade the vSphere Replication deployment on the protected site.

Upgrade Site Recovery Manager Server on the protected site.

If you use array-based replication, upgrade the storage replication adapters (SRA) on the protected site.

Upgrade all components of vCenter Server on the recovery site.

If you use vSphere Replication, upgrade the vSphere Replication deployment on the recovery site.

Upgrade Site Recovery Manager Server on the recovery site.

If you use array-based replication, upgrade the storage replication adapters (SRA) on the recovery site.

Verify the connection between the Site Recovery Manager sites.

Verify that your protection groups and recovery plans are still valid.

Upgrade ESXi Server on the recovery site (optional).

Upgrade ESXi Server on the protected site (optional).

Upgrade the virtual hardware and VMware Tools on the virtual machines on the ESXi hosts.

Source: vCenter Site Recovery Manager 6.1 Installation and Configuration guide.

Upgrade Site Recovery Manager 6

Before you begin, make sure you make a full backup of the Site Recovery Manager database and if you made changes in the advanced settings, take a note of those settings as they will be reset.

If you are using vSphere Replication Appliance 6, you must upgrade it to version 6.1 before the Site Recovery Manager upgrade. See one of my previous blogs on how to do it, the process didn’t change much since the last release.

This procedure will describe the in-place upgrade of Site Recovery manager 6 to version 6.1 starting with the protected site .

Open the downloaded executable from VMware and select your language. Click Next on the welcome page and the VMware patents page. Accept the EULA and click Next. Review the pre-installation tasks in the installation and configuration guide if necessary and click Next. Change the installation folder if necessary and click Next to continue. Enter the Platform Services Controller (PSC) address (in a simple deployment, this is your vCenter Server or vCenter Server Appliance) and the SSO Admin username and password. Accept the PSC certificate and click Next. Confirm the Site Recovery Manager registration extension and click Overwrite the previous extension. Choose the certificate type. I went for the existing self-signed one since it was still valid. Click Next. Enter the database user password. In my case, this is the embedded database administrator. Click Next. Specify the account to run the SRM Service on your machine or use the Local System account. Click Next. Click Install to start the upgrade process and click Finish to close the wizard once it completes.

At this point the Site Recovery Manager is upgraded to version 6.1. If you are logged in to the vSphere Web Client, log out, clear the browser cache and log back in. The Site Recovery Manager extension should be visible now.

Next, upgrade the recovery site and then verify your protection groups, recovery plans etc. Don’t forget to upgrade the vSphere Replication Appliance first if you are using one on the protected site! 🙂

Cheers!

– Marek.Z