Upgrading vCenter Server to 5.5 in my lab – part 3

Upgrade vCenter Inventory Service

This is the third post in a series of articles chronicling the process of upgrading my personal vSphere lab system from 5.1 to 5.5.

Before you get started with the upgrade, you should read the following KB article:

Upgrading to vCenter Inventory Service 5.5 on a Microsoft Windows platform (2058272)

Information Required for vCenter Inventory Service Installation or Upgrade

Upgrade Procedure:

Mount the vSphere 5.5 installation media.
In the left pane, under Custom Install, click vCenter Inventory Service and then click Install.

Note: If any of the prerequisites are not met, they are listed in the right pane under Prerequisites.

Select the appropriate language from the dropdown and click OK.

In the welcome screen, click Next.

Note: If a previous version of vCenter Inventory Service is installed, the welcome screen displays the message:
An earlier version of vCenter Inventory Service is already installed on this computer and will be upgraded to vCenter Inventory Service 5.5.
If the distinguished name for any existing SSL certificate is not unique, the old SSL certificate will be replaced with a new certificate.

Review the End User License Agreement. If you agree, select the I accept the terms in the license agreement option and click Next.

Select one of these options when presented with a database re-initialization warning:

Keep my existing database – Select this option to retain your existing data in the vCenter Inventory Service. (I selected this to keep my existing vCenter inventory data.)
Replace my existing database – Select this option to replace the existing database. You must acknowledge that a backup of the Inventory Service database and SSL certificates has been performed.

In the dialog that appears, check if the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) of the host where vCenter Inventory Service is displayed. This field is auto-populated.

Notes from the KB article:

If this field is not auto-populated, enter the FQDN manually.
If there is an issue with DNS resolution, you see the error:
The Fully Qualified Domain name could not be resolved using DnsQuery API..
If you see this error, resolve the DNS resolution issue before proceeding.

Click Next.

Optionally, provide an alternative TCP port number for the vCenter Inventory Service and click Next.

Note: Changing the default ports is recommended only if you have an unchangeable port conflict in the same system.

Select the appropriate JVM memory size, depending on the environmental requirements. Click Next.

Enter the SSO lookup Service URL and the SSO administrator username and password. You may be prompted to install the Lookup Service Certificate. Click Next.

Notes from the KB article:

You must use the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) and not the IP address. Providing the IP address may allow you to proceed with the upgrade, but may result in certificate related errors when starting vCenter Server. For more information, see vCenter Server 5.x fails to start after upgrading Single Sign-On configuration from vSphere 5.1 to vSphere 5.5 (2058080).
If you are configuring a highly available SSO configuration, you must provide the FQDN of the load balancer. Providing the FQDN of a single node may allow you to proceed with the upgrade, but may result in certificate related errors when starting vCenter Server. For more information, see vCenter Server 5.x fails to start after upgrading Single Sign-On configuration from vSphere 5.1 to vSphere 5.5 (2058080).

When prompted, verify the fingerprint of the certificate and click Yes to proceed.

In the Ready to Install screen, click Install.