<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">There are a lot of changes introduced with vCenter 5.1, including the somewhat negatively infamous SSO service. This post contains some tips from my upgrade experience that should help you have a successful upgrade. </p>
<h1>Reverse DNS</h1>
<p>Make sure to have a reverse DNS zone configured for the domain controllers, vCenter, and the SQL server. While this doesn’t have to be a Windows hosted DNS zone, that’s what I normally see and use.<br /> Here’s a screen grab from my lab’s DNS:</p>
<p> During the install process, the installer does a reverse lookup when you enter the FQDN of a server. If that fails, a box warns about a failed nslookup of the IP (reverse lookup). This is a good clue that your reverse lookup zone is either not configured or does not contain PTR entries for the servers.<br /> If the lookup zone does not have PTR records for the domain controllers SSO will <span></span>fail to find the domain and automatically add it as an identity source.</p>
<h1>Avoid the Simple Install Option</h1>
<p>The Simple Install process is used to turn the now three step update process (SSO, Inventory Service, and vCenter Server) into a one click operation. I tried it for the first time because my lab is small enough to host all of these services on a single VM. However, I found that it’s sort of like a train that keeps on flying down the tracks regardless of any issues. My vCenter server was a smoking crater that was so goobered up that I wasn’t even able to log back in with anything short of my vCenter local Administrator account. I ended up restoring my database from backup and rolling back my snapshot on the VM. </p>
<blockquote><p>Note: Make sure to take a database backup and snapshot (or backup) your vCenter server </p></blockquote>
<p>On the next attempt I used the three installers in a serial fashion: first the SSO installer, then Inventory Service, and finally the vCenter Server. This allowed more granular control over the process even though I was doing it all to the same server.</p>
<p> The update process was 100% successful via this method and I didn’t need to restart or reboot anything afterwards. </p>
<h1>Install the vSphere Web Client</h1>
<p>Since the SSO service is controlled via the new vSphere Web Client, I highly advise installing the vCenter Web Client server. I found the naming a bit curious, as the install option states “vSphere Web Client” as something you can install – rest assured, this installs the server / service itself, not any actual client.</p>
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