Hyper V 2012 Upgrade

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Mabrito

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Is it possible to upgrade an existing installation of Server 2008 R2 with Hyper V to 2012 with Hyper V?

I am seeing conflicting stories so far in my googling that says its possible and not possible.

We have 5 hosts running Hyper V role on Server 2008 R2 and I am looking to turning the hosts into Server 2012 with Hyper V. Is this a possible in place upgrade?
 
It is possible, I've done this upgrade before, and it was pretty smooth. I think the part that took the longest for me was backing up the VHDs (Customer requested in case the upgrade failed, re-imaging would have been the quickest restore if it had failed) and then the reboots involved as well. You will obviously want to shut down any VMs running, and you will want to resolve any "issues" the Upgrade says needs to be resolved.

If I remember right, I mocked up the Upgrade on a test server before running it in production, might be worth the time so you know what to expect. It was late Fall last year when I went through this, so I don't remember exactly every little detail before clicking go.
 
You can't do an in place upgrade like you can with VMware. You'll have to either create a new cluster or evacuate hosts from your existing cluster to form a new one, install Windows 2012 (don't upgrade, blech), config Hyper-V, then begin shutting down, exporting, and importing your VMs onto the new cluster.

The good news is, once you're on Hyper-V 2012 you can perform in place upgrades just like you can with VMware. Evict a host from your cluster, install Windows 2012 R2, configure Hyper-V, then Live Migrate VMs to the new host/cluster.
 
That's true if he's running his VMs in a cluster, if he's using individual instances of Hyper-V he should be fine to do an in place upgrade.

I agree, upgrading isn't my preferred method, but it is *technically* an option...
 
Unfortunately its not clustered yet....no SAN (if I have my way, this should be approved for a beginning of next year project/budget). Its 5 individual hosts managed by SCVMM 2008 R2 for the self service portal.capabilities.

Ultimately, I am looking to go 2012 everything....SCVMM and Hyper-V. Its my understanding 2008 R2 of SCVMM doesnt support 2012 hosts, so Ill need to update that first. Apparently, SP1 of SCVMM 2012 got rid of the Self Service Portal and its replaced by something else...so I am investigating that.

The overall plan is...Upgrade to SCVMM 2012, then do in place upgrades of the 5 Hyper V hosts if all possible...then move the storage to a SAN backend and cluster the 5 hosts together....then take a vacation :)
 
2012 R2 will be out by then so I'd upgrade to that instead. Lots of new features.

Yes, you'll need to upgrade SCVMM first. AppController is the product that is now used for the self service portal. It's part of System Center.
 
Child of Wonder said:
2012 R2 will be out by then so I'd upgrade to that instead. Lots of new features.

Yes, you'll need to upgrade SCVMM first. AppController is the product that is now used for the self service portal. It's part of System Center.
Click to expand...

Yeah...do you know if I can do a direct upgrade from 2008 R2 SCVMM straight to 2012 R2 or do I need to go to base/SP1 2012 first?

Also, is AppController pretty easy to setup like the old Self Service portal or will it require some development work? I havent look much into it yet, so just wondering.
 
I would migrate VM's from one host to the other remaining hosts, then Wipe the original hosts, install Hyper-V 2012 and then migrate them back. The continue the process with the remaining.
 
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