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vSphere Distributed Switch Part 12 – Upgrade Your dvSwitch to Latest Version

This post explains you the step by step procedure to upgrade your vSphere distributed switch to a later version. You can upgrade your dvswitch from version 4.0,4.1,5.0 or 5.1 to the latest version. The major purpose of the upgrade is to take advantage of networking features that are available as part of later version dvswitch.This upgrade operation is a non-disruptive so that there is no downtime to hosts and virtual machines attached to your distributed switch.
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Below are the features which are available as part of  various versions of distributed switch.
Distributed Switch 5.5.0 : This version of dvswitch is compatible with VMware ESXi version 5.5 and later. New features like Traffic filtering and Marking, and enhanced LACP support are available as part of this version.
Distributed Switch 5.1.0 : This version of dvswitch is compatible with VMware ESXi version 5.1 and later. New features like Management Network Rollback and Recovery, Health Check, Enhanced Port Mirroring and LACP are available as part of this version.
Distributed Switch 5.0.0 : This version of dvswitch is compatible with VMware ESXi version 5.0 and later. New features like User-defined network resource pools in Network I/O control, NetFlow, and Port Mirroring are available as part of this version.
Distributed Switch 4.1.0 : This version of dvswitch is compatible with VMware ESX version 4.1 and later. New features like Load-Based Teaming and Network I/O control are available as part of this version.
Distributed Switch 4.0 : This version of dvswitch is compatible with VMware ESX version 4.0 and later. The features supported by later distributed switch versions will not be available.
My distributed switch called “DSwitch-Development” is running with the version 5.1.0. So I am going to upgrade my dvswitch from version 5.1.0 to 5.5.0.  I would recommend to take a backup of your dvswitch before proceed with this upgrade as mentioned in the post“Export Distributed Switch Configuration”
Login to your vCenter Server using vSphere web client. Select your dvswitch and click on Actions. Select Upgrade Distributed Switch option.
Review the upgrade for version 5.5.0 and features available as part of this version. Click on Next.
Below are the Pre-requisites to upgrade your dvswitch to version 5.5
1. vCenter Server version should be 5.5 or later
2. All ESXi hosts connected dvswitch switch should be version 5.5 or later
Verify the compatibility for the dvswitch upgrade and click on Next
Once upgraded the dvswitch cannot be downgraded to a previous distributed switch version. You will not be able to add older VMware ESX/ESXi server members that are not compatible with the new dvswitch.
Current Distributed switch Version: 5.1.0
Upgraded Distributed switch Version : 5.5.0
Feature Conversion: Some of the new features like (Enhanced the LACP support) need an additional conversion setup. Select the Checkbox “Enhance the LACP support” and click on Finish
Backup your dvswitch configuration and  review the new features which are available a part of enhancing LACP support and click on Next
  • Support for Configuring multiple link aggregation group (LAGs)
  • LAGs are represented as uplinks in the teaming and failover policy
  • Multiple load balancing options for LAGs
  • Centralized switch-level configuration available under Manage-> Settings-> LACP
Ensure that the prerequisites to enhance the LACP support are met and click on Next
Review the settings selection and click on Finish. Once the process is completed, you can go to Manage -> Settings -> LACP of your dvswitch to add, remove and manage link aggregation group (LAGs).
That’s it. Distributed Switch called” DSwitch-Development” is running with the version 5.5.0.It is upgraded from the previous version 5.1.0.
I hope this is informative for you. Thanks for reading !!!. Be Social and share it in social media if you feel worth sharing it.
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