Nexus 1000v Upgrade - Question about VSM and VEM Compatibility

[Aaron Denny]

I am unable to find Cisco documentation on backwards compatibility of VEMs when performing an upgrade to the VSM. I am looking to upgrade the VSM from 4.2(1)SV2(2.1a) to 5.2(1)SV3(1.15).

Do the hosts need to be upgraded simultaneously or will they continue to function with the current VEM? I would prefer to leave the hosts as is and perform the VEM upgrade as a bundle with the ESXi host upgrade to 6.0 to eliminate having two seperate outage windows for the hosts.

ESXi hosts are all running 5.5 with VEM cisco-vem-v162-esx (4.2.1.2.2.1a.0-3.2.1).

Thanks for the assistance in advance!

[Kirk J · Accepted solution]

Greetings.

Check the link below, as you can key in your esxi version, N1k version, and the destination versions, and will get a high level steps list.

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/en/us/td/docs/Website/datacenter/nexus1000/upgrade/n1kvmatrix.html

You can upgrade directly from the SV2(2.1a) to SV3(1.15)

VSM upgrade notes: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus1000/sw/5_2_1_s_v_3_1_15/install_upgrade/guide/b_Cisco_N1KV_VMware_Install_and_Upgrade_Guide_521SV3115/b_Cisco_N1KV_VMware_Install_and_Upgrade_Guide_521SV3115_chapter_010.html

Please make sure you check the required CPU, vram,virtual Disk space requirements BEFORE, you upgrade the VSM, as the requirements increase for SV3 versions.

After the VSM is upgraded, your VEMs will continue to function at the older level, until you get the vems upgraded.  You generally don't want to make any major config changes will running in this mixed level.

After upgrading the vems, don't forget to update the vem feature level, or features that now get offloaded to VEMs from the VSM (netflow, igmp snooping, lacp, etc) will continuing to be run on VSM.

Take a look at http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/datacenter/nexus1000/sw/5_2_1_s_v_3_1_15/install_upgrade/guide/b_Cisco_N1KV_VMware_Install_and_Upgrade_Guide_521SV3115/b_Cisco_N1KV_VMware_Install_and_Upgrade_Guide_521SV3115_chapter_0100.html 

as it has some notes on integrating the update VEM vib module into the esxi 6.0 install/update ISO.

Thanks,

Kirk...

[Aaron Denny]

Thank you Kirk.